top posting, HTML posting and "the closer"

[Robert P. J. Day]

  every time these issues come up on this list, the common defense
among the lazy, inconsiderate, "hey, this is how we do it where *i*
come from" whiners is that, as long as there is no fedora-approved, at
the fedora site itself, official netiquette document, they will feel
free to post however they want.

  which raises the immediately obvious question: once that document is
complete and up there, and it *clearly* and *unambiguously* states
that thou shalt not top post, and thou shalt not post in HTML, and
thou shalt trim thine replies, will that shut you up?  seriously.

  for those of you who work in retail, that question is a variation of
what's known as the "closer".  if someone just can't make up their
mind about whether they're going to buy, and they just keep hemming
and hawing, your final strategy is to ask, "what *exactly* will it
take for you to buy?"  this puts the burden back on the potential
customer and, if they can't come up with an answer, every good
salesman knows to just cut their losses and walk away.

  so, to those folks who make all of our lives on this mailing list
miserable on a regular basis with their cluelessness and lack of
courtesy, here's the "closer":  once that netiquette document is
posted *at* fedora.redhat.com, and it *explicitly* forbids top
posting, and HTML, will you finally stop being such jerks?

  if the answer's "yes", then that's extra incentive for the doc
writers to *finish* the danged thing and get it up there tout de
suite, to make this finally go away.

  if, however, the answer is "no", well, then, we have a problem since
that would mean you've been lying to us all this time, telling us that
you've been doing this just because the rules weren't written down.
but even after they *are*, well, you're going to ignore them, anyway.
i *really* hope it doesn't come to that.

  and a final aside to the netiquette doc writers:  word those rules
*very* carefully.  do not leave them open to interpretation since, as
we've seen, these folks love loopholes and playing semantic word
games.  do not, for instance, say that posting in HTML is
"discouraged"; say it's "unacceptable", and point at a longer doc that
explains why.  don't use phrases like "it's preferable that ...".
don't leave those kinds of openings.  it's just asking for trouble.

rday