Spelling style on MLs (was: KDE's rough edges... what are your experiences?)

[Michael]

Am Tue, 29 Oct 2013 16:20:15 +0000 (UTC)
schrieb Duncan <1i5t5.duncan at cox.net>:

> Michael posted on Mon, 28 Oct 2013 14:59:12 +0100 as excerpted:
> 
> > Hell! Don't take it the wrong way, but I strongly suggest you
> > rethink your way of "communicating" on mailinglists. You went in
> > such lengths in absolutely unrelated topics and even with slightly
> > related topics you went by far, far, far, far to deep. It was
> > really no pleasure at all to read it all, which I had to as
> > courtesy demands it, as I did ask for feedback. And what I took
> > from your 25.457 characters in 441 lines and 4270 words would fit
> > in roundabout 10-20 lines.
> 
> FWIW, I'm aware of the situation, and/but...

Nice to hear, really!


> I do in fact have quite a collection of thanks from people who find
> my "essays" useful enough to thank me, and in some cases, to actually
> have a "Duncan folder" where they save those "essays" for further
> reference. =:^)

I can see that *deep* and exuberant all-embracing mails may have some
benefits for some topics / audiences + simple chit-chat where the
direction of a given topic might shift, intentionally or not, but on a
technical and rather specific mailing list... not so much. If arbitrary
folks on a mailing list appreciate those exuberant mails, it might just
indicate how little they know about a topic and they consider your
mails as some sort of FAQ or overall information sheet. For a lack of
knowledge, books, wikis, documentation do exist. Most mailing lists are
just the wrong medium for that and as it might annoy many folks: Don't
do it! You know, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of a few...


> OTOH, I'm also aware that some people find them intolerable, to the
> point of killfiling me -- which I'm OK with as I've always considered 
> killfiling an absolute right on the net (that being one of the
> reasons I prefer newsgroups and mailing lists to web forums, where
> killfiling is often not possible), no reason needed, and in fact IMO
> it's often better no reason given, since most "you're killfiled,
> plonk!" posts I've seen would have been better not posted at all.  (I
> seldom make such posts myself as if it really /has/ gotten to the
> point I'm plonking, I seldom see what further positive contribution
> that last post from my end could make.  From their perspective I
> guess I just stop replying... letting them have the last word.)

Can we agree that at least most do probably prefer "straight to the
point"? No idea how many think your style is "intolerable" (apart from
me) but as I guess... again... the needs of the many... 

> I guess most people are somewhere in between, skimming/reading my 
> "epistles" with varying degrees of impatience.

I doubt that! :-) I guess most are at least annoyed to a certain
degree, but most do not care enough to do anything about it either.
Ignorance is a bliss, which I don't possess apparently. ;-) 


> > If you really feel the urge to go into such detail, do everyone on
> > the list a favour and divide your mails in two parts.
> 
> I am /trying/ to develop the habit of doing a TL;DR paragraph near
> the top when length justifies, but I'm afraid I've not made it a
> particularly regular habit just yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ4yd2W50No - "Do. Or do not. There is
no try." as fancy-pants Yoda once said. ;-)
But I don't see how a TL;DR-disclaimer *at the top* accomplishes
anything. The idea was *not* to establish a "Duncan babbler, don't
read further"-mark, but rather change the "habit" all-together.

> FWIW, thanks for the reminder that I need to keep working at it.  As
> I said at the top, I /am/ aware of the situation...

If I may offer some help there... after writing a paragraph, read again
what you just wrote and search for repetitions. Apply some "fuzzy logic"
there, as I saw you tend to say essentially the same with different
words or with different arguments and explanations. Second, reread it
again, see if you can shorten stuff to a degree that the essence of the
message is still there. Remove everything that is more than "2 steps
away" from the question asked. Use details *sparely* and only when a
true benefit is visible or a point you like to make does not work
without the details. Then write the next paragarph, do the same there.
When finished with the mail, right before you would send it, reread the
whole mail again. If according to the "rules" above you don't see
anything wrong, read it again, just to make sure.

Btw., I tend to have a similar "issue", but I'd say it is not nearly
as bad! ;) But I follow the "rules" above nevertheless, courtesy
demands it imho. 

Michael
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