Subject: Re: <draft-ietf-usefor-usepro-01.txt>

From: Seth Breidbart <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2004 15:57:04 -0400 (EDT)

John Stanley <[email-masked]> wrote:
> "Charles Lindsey" <chl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

>>No, the poster cannot "define" how articles are to be displayed, but he
>>can indicate his intention in the matter ...
>
> If he cannot control it, his intention of controlling it is
> irrelevant.

Not to me, as a reader.  While I don't _have to_ display anything the
way the poster wants, I will often _choose_ to _defer to_ the poster's
wishes.

> "I want ...". That's nice, but you don't get to say. Presenting it
> as if there was some mechanism, when none exists, just leads to
> foolish expectations.

An expectation that is fulfilled, say, 98% of the time is far from
"foolish".

>>If you read the definition, some followups come from precursors and some
>>come from the poster's display intentions.
>
> Since the "display intentions" are irrelevant, that part of the 
> definition is irrelevant.

The "display intentions" are not irrelevant to me, as a reader,
because my newsreader adheres to them 99.9+% of the time (that is, I
seldom bother to override its defaults).

Seth

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 22:45:51 GMT

>>The alternative text, which you did not quote, is

>Didn't need to quote it, I thought.

>If he cannot control it, his intention of controlling it is irrelevant. "I 
>want ...". That's nice, but you don't get to say. Presenting it as if 
>there was some mechanism, when none exists, just leads to foolish 
>expectations. Just like the foolish expectations that copyright notices in 
>the body of an article are going to change how Google or any other 
>automated news processor is going to work.

The whole of this discussion started because it was reported that some FAQ
writers had formed the habit of linking their multi-part FAQs together
using References-headers, and a consensus developed that this practice was
a Good Thing.

But why did those FAQ writers start doing that? Because they saw that it
would cause their parts to be presented in the correct order, at least in
those reading agents which did threading (which was enough of them to be
useful). In other words, they were indicating an intention of how they
would like their articles displayed. Not guaranteed to work, but working
often enough to be useful.

>>>The alternative I suggested is still better. Why has it never appeared in
>>>any form?

>>You need to explain _why_ your wording is better.

>I have, many times. On the other hand, I've not seen any explanation of 
>why your new alternative is better, it just appeared out of nowhere. And
>now I've explained why YOUR wording is wrong.

And I've just explained why it was right. Your move.

All the remaining points raised in your message raise nothing that has not
already been discussed on this list ad nauseam and received adequate
answers, both from myself and from others. If other members of this
list feel that any of your points are worth further discussion, then I am
willing to reopen them. But not otherwise.

-- 
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133   Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
Email: [email-masked]      Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K.
PGP: 2C15F1A9      Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5