[Standards] About posting new topics to the same thread

Sat Nov 1 04:05:31 CDT 2008

Am 31.10.2008 um 23:38 schrieb Brett Zamir:

> Jonathan Schleifer wrote:
>> Oh, and if we're already at it, you should stop using TOFU[1],  
>> which is considered very impolite on mailing lists.
>>
>> -- 
>> Jonathan
>>
>> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOFU#Top-posting
>
> I personally strongly dislike bottom-posting, and the Wikipedia  
> article you cite also indicates there are preference differences out  
> there, including within mailing lists.

- If you are sending a reply to a message or a posting be sure you  
summarize the original at the top of the message, or include just  
enough text of the original to give a context. This will make sure  
readers understand when they start to read your response. Since  
NetNews, especially, is proliferated by distributing the postings from  
one host to another, it is possible to see a response to a message  
before seeing the original. Giving context helps everyone. But do not  
include the entire original!
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1855

So there *IS* a standard for mailing lists. The Wikipedia article also  
states that this is the netiquette.

> But instead of getting into a fruitless argument about what we think  
> is the "right" way, how about we consider some way to solve the  
> problem? Given that we already have the benefit of a formal  
> hierarchical structure within XMPP via XML, how about a namespaced  
> child of <message type=normal> (too late for <body>) to keep track  
> of hierarchical content within a posting, which besides enabling  
> posting order display to differ by user preference, would also more  
> easily enable scripting to collapse or navigate a section of  
> quotations, differentially auto-color replies from particular users  
> or levels, etc.? Perhaps even XHTML-IM (XEP 0071) could be  
> overloaded for such a purpose via <blockquote>'s @cite attribute  
> (which could use an XMPP URI or email URI to indicate authorship)  
> and/or the @class attribute (e.g., to distinguish citations from the  
> "inner thread" from those outside of its context).

We're using e-mail here, not XMPP :).

> For that matter, how about some mechanisms to enable forking of  
> threads, even within a post? (along the lines of, and potentially  
> supporting, wikis, discussion forums, blogs, versioning systems,  
> etc., since, to my mind, these all should all only be slightly  
> different in terms of protocol syntax so that one can easily treat  
> one as (or convert one to) the other, as there is a lot of albeit  
> inadequate convergence between them already). (Sorry I am not too  
> well-informed on all of the numerous specs you all have marvelously  
> already put out there, so my apologies to whatever extent this  
> covers ground already covered.)

Then we'd need to switch mailing lists to XMPP. Would be a use  
scenario for PubSub :).

--
Jonathan
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