Blood, Water and Magicians

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>Matt,

>

>I couldn't make heads or tails of your last message because the old

>message and the reply are unclearly mixed.

ACHILLES
It was indeed very muddled. I made sense only of part of it, and with great
effort. 

<snip Jeff's explanation of basic quoting protocol>

>I'm sorry if the software you use to compose messages for e-mail is not

>adequate to the task of adding these markings, but you won't get much

>sympathy sympathy from me on that score.  The so-called "primitive" (Just

>ask anyone in Redmond about how it compares to Outlook or even the mail

>client in Explorer, and I'm sure that's what they'll tell you) software

>I use on Unix easily does it, including re-formatting paragraphs so

>they don't spill off of an 80-column display.

ACHILLES
I don't think he can blame his software. I am using the freeware version of
Eudora (www.qualcomm.com,) which has no problem handling that. I have used
Netscape and Outlook and Explorer mail and they can all handle this, though
sometimes it involves taking a little time to hunt through preferences
dialogues to force them to work right. 

Still, I dislike their bloat and always go back to Eudora. It is great if
you don't want to bother spending time figuring out how to force Outlook to
behave itself. I believe Pegasus Mail is also still available as freeware.
So if you can't figure out how to get your bloatware to work properly that's
no excuse, just download something that does work right for free. 

One other issue, I don't know about the rest of you but just about the most
annoying thing I can think of is messages that come doubled... plain text
followed by HTML. What a waste of bandwidth (and my HDD space)... 


>Another way to solve the problem, of course, is to minimize quoted text

>and even to re-state the exchange in your own words in the new article.

>This is probably a valuable tool for all concerned, because when I read

>your exposition of my argument, I can immediately see what you may have

>missed, where this isn't at all clear when you merely respond after

>quoted text.  It might not so much be a disagreement as a

>misunderstanding about just what I meant!  This is why one is taught in

>philosophy classes to begin an essay critical of a viewpoint with as

>sympathetic and strong a statement of that viewpoint.  If you can't

>convince your "opponent" that you understand what he thinks, why would

>he lend any importance to what you have to say on the subject?

ACHILLES
Amen to that! 


Achilles

"...we are not simply contending in order that my view or that
of yours may prevail, but I presume we ought both of us to be
fighting for the truth..."
from Philebus, the Dialogues of Plato 

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