On Sep 20, 2010, at 7:20 PM, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
One of the problems I have seen emerge on many IETF mailing lists is the
habit of fisking.
Please clarify what you mean by fisking.
By fisking I mean responding to a post line by line *while reading it for
the first time*.
Thanks. And why is this a bad thing, in your view?
I seem to be reading an increasing number of posts on various lists where it
is very clear to me that the poster did not bother to read the entire message
before starting their reply.
Perhaps they're just very busy people? Are you too ignorant to have thought of
that?
In particular I have read rather a lot of people starting off by accusing
their opponent of being ignorant of issues that their opponent actually
states only a few paragraphs further on.
Reading ahead is hard, you can't expect everyone to do it. Many of us are too
busy and important to take the time to compose a message carefully, so it makes
sense to require everyone else to take longer to read our messages.
Traditionally, top-posting (or bottom posting) has been discouraged in favor
of responding line by line. I think it is time to reverse that preference.
You can't tell me what to do; that's what the Nazis did. You suck.
In particular I find that arguments are often less combative and somewhat
shorter
Is that a crack about my height? I dare you to say it to my face at the next
IETF.
in mediums where people are forced to restate the issue they are objecting to
in their own words.
In all seriousness, forcing any particular approach is the real issue. I can't
imagine how it would be accomplished. What I'd really like to force people to
do is be more thoughtful and restrained; if they did that, it wouldn't much
matter what approach they took to replies. -- Nathaniel
PS for the humor impaired -- only my last paragraph was intended to be serious.
-- nsb
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