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Re: On why bottom posting....
- From: Warren Young <warren at etr-usa dot com>
- To: The Vulgar and Unprofessional Cygwin-Talk List <cygwin-talk at cygwin dot com>
- Date: Fri, 09 May 2014 06:13:36 -0600
- Subject: Re: On why bottom posting....
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On 5/8/2014 18:47, Linda Walsh wrote:
They don't realize
Hasty generalization fallacy. You don't know what they realize.
like most good sources, will put the historical context information
at the end in an appendix.
This is either the no true Scotsman fallacy, or denying the antecedent.
"My AP History teacher made us cite sources like this, therefore
people who don't do it that way are wrong."
Most email is conversation, not essay or article writing. The only
reason we need quotes at all is that the pieces of the conversation are
spaced apart in time and space, so we need context to keep the pieces
strung together.
Now if we can just get the bottom-posters to realize that by posting
the footnotes, historical data, and duplicate info at the top
of the document, they are more likely to lose the reader who is
only scanning the first half the page.
That's why bottom-posting is supposed to go along with aggressive quote
trimming, so that the quote includes only the pithiest possible
reference to the prior contribution to the conversation.
I *have* noticed a lot of emails to the Cygwin lists with the entire
prior conversation seemingly quoted, and one or two sentences appended.
If you want to rail against that, I'm right there with you.