From: Eugen Leitl (eugen@leitl.org)
Date: Sun Apr 21 2002 - 03:10:07 MDT
For the benefit of the list (not BBS, that's something different, see
subject line) subscribers I've reformatted Hermit's reply properly by
wrapping overlong lines, and using legacy citation methods and removing
the CoV plug, since irrelevant to the discussion.
On Sat, 20 Apr 2002, Hermit wrote:
> A full reply may be viewed (in full mark-up format) at
> http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;threadid=25392
Here Hermit admits implicitly that the email format with full markup is
inferior if not rendered into HTML and viewed via a browser. No
explanation is given why using a browser is preferrable to user's current
method of choice (MUA) to view what is a pure text message.
> The formatting under discussion may be viewed at FAQ: Hermitish mail
> mark-up and citation V2.1
> (http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=31;action=display;threadid=11526)
>
> As this reply appears to be relevant to Extropians as well, and is
> indirectly a response to a critical article posted on the ExI BBS (of
> which I am a member), it appears appropriate to post excerpts here
> too.
>
> [hr]
> [David Lucifer 1]
> [Ashton 2]
> [Hermit 3]
> [hr]
For the first time twitter is introduced. The first time reader scratches
her head, before reading on, the more seasoned reader recognizes a
reinvention of a wheel (Supercite):
http://www.fnal.gov/docs/products/emacs/v19_34/sc_toc.html
albeit in a polygonal shape. Yes, it is really hard to improve on a mature
medium.
> [David Lucifer] Message sent to Extropians mailing list:
Here you see the polygonal-wheel aspect of the citation method: it doesn't
use abbreviations for the author cite, thus wasting line width, a scarce
resource in this medium.
> http://www.extropy.org/bbs/index.php?board=61;action=display;threadid=51564
>
> [Ashton 2] Humm, I\'d swap bizarrely wrong design with the more delightful \'wrong-headed\'.
Here we see more twitter. The idiotic gateway from the SuperDuperMarkUp
feels it's necessary to mask apostrophes in plain text rendition of the
markup. There is absolutely no reason to do this either than author's
fiat. Here he continues demonstrating his fundamental lack of
understanding of legacy medium plain text, or blatant disregard for user's
wishes. It would have been trivial to reverse the masking, and even to
convert his citation style into legacy (I frankly admit the reverse is
less trivial, but that's not the point discussed).
> [Hermit 3] I\'ll deal with this later. I would suggest that
> \"bizarrely wrong design\" might apply to people advocating embedding
> line wrapping into text, and thus confusing data and presentation. If
The assertion is that his method is superior. There is no proof given but
reference to nebulous mention of "confusing data and presentation". I
recommend Hermit to read up on basic typography, which is the art and
technology to render readable documents. He might have failed to notice
that markup, which was designed to be orthogonal to orthography has wound
up to have had to reinvent typography, poorely (I've predicted that, of
course).
It's obvious why: people's visual systems are rather hardwired, and
legibility is measurable in objective benchmarks. Because people are not
computers there's most assuredly a strong coupling between data and
presentation.
> so, it indubitably applies to \">\" indentation of mail which requires
> the embedding of hard line feeds and makes the material almost
> unusable after more than a few people have commented on it, even on
> computers supporting 80 column text. I\'m not even sure that
Here is another assertion without proof. I think the "even on 80 chars
column text" can be considered a rather modest requirement at this day and
age. As compared to a browser on a bitmapped display. Especially a
bitmapped display of >2 kPixels horizontal, which Hermit is using. I also
happen to use a dual-head display with >2 kPixels, but I don't assume
anybody else does. This email could be read via a voice synthesizer
(twitter characters highly fatal here, or anything which makes textflow
nonlinear for that matter), on a braille line, or some other degraded
medium. (Btw, any blind or othewise disabled extropians here? I'm asking
for your input in this debate. Do you have specific requirements for the
formatting of list messages?)
> \"wrong-headed\" applies at all, as the mark-up is a way which permits
> users to format their text in such a way as to make it more attractive
> to people viewing it through the BBS, comprehensible to those
The claim made is that an email users wants to jump through hoops to make
this text more readable to web users than those via hypermail'd list
archives.
Here's a counterclaim: the medium of pigment-stained dead tree has
produced great content and still continues doing so. Content created is of
a quality making our drivel here utterly insignificant. Here's empiric
proof that great minds are not bottlenecked by legacy media. Especially,
spiced up legacy media as plain text email with obvious citation rules and
hyperlinks.
Hermit's markup is there for a purpose: it claims to facilitate
communcation, drawing great minds which then produce content. I would like
to see some of that fabulous content those great minds have produced which
eclipses content produced e.g. in this meek legacy medium of extropians@
mailing list -- by an order of magnitude. I somehow kept missing those in
http://forum.javien.com/messages.php?topicdata=virus&new=true
I'm so lost. Can you help me by pointing out killer content in there?
Thank you.
> receiving it in mail and fully useable in a WAP environment. The
> alternative appears to be no formatting capability at all, the easy
> confusion of attribution in all but the simplest cases, a confused
One would think that people who care about attribution can keep track of
what was said when by whom, even without installing Supercite. Guess what,
they do. It's the people who disregard form who don't. Which is fine with
me, because such people rarely have anything worthwhile to say. If you
care about content, you care about form. Sounds kinda obvious, right?
> tangle of wrapped lines and the non-portability of the material.
> Perhaps the reason for considering this approach \"wrong ! headed\" is
> simply that none of this might be visible to somebody lacking
> appropriate experience or imagination. Perhaps you would like to
You're asking me for experience with your medium, without demostrating
value first? What strange attitude you have there. Your claims of your
critic's lack of imagination is disingenuous (you're also ugly, and your
mother dresses you funny, too).
> expand on why you perceive this effort as \'wrong-headed\'?
>
> [Ashton 2] \'a simplified mail-markup\'? It\'s certainly not simpler
> for the writers! Unless, of course, someone\'s scripted their mail
> agent blue in the face ...
Exactly. Without widespread authoring tools you're back to manual
formatting. Uh, Don't Think So.
> [Hermit 3] Actually, I have to disagree. It takes me much less time
> (as a fairly prolific writer), to enter \"Hermitish mark-up\"
> manually, rather than trying to follow \">\" indentation. Certainly I
Hermit, this is compleat horse puckey (thanks, Robert). Typical
discussions never go over 5 citation nesting, which is trivial to follow
(even without Supercite -- notice that no one bothers with superior
citation practices because there's _zero demand_ for it).
> (and many others) find it much easier to follow. The important point
> being that the use of any form of mark-up is purely optional, but the
If it's purely optional, the please remove the twitter, wrap your lines,
and use the ">" for citations. That's about a Perl-geek-afternoon in work
units.
> fact that it exists and is \"mail-safe\" as well as displaying
> effectively on the BBS allows those who wish to take the trouble to
> make their messages a lot more attractive, and allows somebody with
You're not making this message a lot more attractive, let me tell you.
> slight experience to follow items formatted in this fashion in email
> or on the BBS. As the FAQ
> (http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=31;action=display;threadid=11526)
> puts it, \"The use of this system is recommended but not mandated for
> postings on the CoV. Using it will make it more likely that others
> will read your submissions and will help to prevent the CoV from
I much prefer to follow forums which don't require me to jump through
hoops. You might observe that readiness to follow braindead formatting
rules in a forum yet sans prestige is negatively correlated with the
ability to contribute content. In other words, you're deliberately
crippling your forum by adherence to idiotic formatting fiat.
> becoming a \"write only zone.\" The use of HTML in posting to the CoV
> is d! epreciated and should be avoided under any circumstances.\"
>
> [Ashton 2] However, I guess that it keeps the cult factor high though
> sheer ugliness.
>
> [Hermit 3] This loaded sentence contains a number of assertions which
Hey, if you can dish out, you'd better get ready to take it. My readiness
to provide you with new nether orifices is only limited by a lack of time.
> I would challenge. The use of \"sheer ugliness\" is a personal
> opinion, which you are certainly entitled to, although not, I think,
> generally shared. Certainly, the assertion of \"cult factor\" does not
Not generally shared, my ass.
> apply at all, unless the CoV is a cult. So let\'s see.
Let's rather not.
[snip]
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:13:36 MST