"Jay T. Blocksom" <not.deliverable+usenet02@appropriate-tech.net> wrote
in message news:sl126195sqircggupapkche2scs8t06lgp@news.speak easy.net...
> On Wed, 13 Apr 2005 08:35:39 -0500, in <alt.privacy.spyware>,
> <Vanguard>
> wrote:
> >
> > "Jay T. Blocksom" <not.deliverable+usenet02@appropriate-tech.net>
> > wrote
> > in message
> > news:mh2o51pashsmauo6f9akiukmt7qni1nrm6@news.speak easy.net...
> [snip]
> > >
> > > All quite correct, except for the omission of one salient detail:
> > > The
> > > ">" character is only canonical as a quote indicator in the
> > > context of,
> > > and the requirement for it to be the first character of a quoted
> > > line is
> > > only relevant to, MIME Content-Type: "format=flowed" documents,
> > > which
> > > these Usenet articles are not.
> > >
> [snip]
> >
> > If RFC 3676 which defines quoting only applies for MIME encoding
> > then,
> > by your own argument, you are using quoting when it doesn't apply.
> > Basically you screwed yourself in your argument: quoting only
> > applies
> > with MIME, you're not using MIME so you should not be using quoting
> > its
> > conventions, but you do use quoting.
> [snip]
>
> Bzzzzt. Wrong, Thanks for playing.

Irrelevant.

> It's quite obvious you do not understand the very RFC you're waving
> around.

And it is obvious you do not understand that RFCs regarding Usenet
standards also refer back to RFCs regarding e-mail standards. For
example, RFC 850, "Standard for Interchange of USENET Messages", refers
to RFC 822, which was obsoleted by RFC 2822, "Internet Message Format",
which specifies the syntax for electronic mail messages.

I did not say that RFC 3676 which discusses quoting style within MIME
content actually applied against Usenet postings. I said it was the
only RFC that I've found so far that actually defines quoting style and
that I never found an RFC that standardized quoting style outside of
MIME.

So the only "standard" regarding quoting style (strictly outside of
MIME) is a de facto standard or conventional use over time. As such,
and because that de facto standard itself is never succinctly defined by
a recognized overruling authority, it is up to interpretation. Of all
the posts that I have seen that using quoting, yours has been the first
where a leading space was added by that sender. Does Forte actually
come pre-configured with a leading space to the quote character (and
changing it from a single character to a 2-character string)?

> First, "quoting", per se, is a long-established custom in text-based
> electronic messaging -- a custom which predates that RFC by a *wide*
> margin
> (and probably Usenet itself, for that matter).

Is there another RFC that addresses standardization of quoting style for
non-MIME messages? If a standard doesn't exist then anyone can use
anything, as is illustrated by your altered quoting style.

> And finally... My quoting style has been developed over a period of
> more than
> 20 years,

Which is unique to you because no one else that I've seen posting
regardless of which NNTP client they use are prepending a space to the
quote character.

> That "style", including such details as the specific quote-prefix
> string, is
> designed to optimize readability on as wide a variety of equipment as
> reasonably possible -- including that which does not make any
> distinction for
> "color" (such as TTY terminals used to telnet into an NNTP server, or
> any true
> text-mode newsreader, for that matter), or even such layout-specific
> details
> as character spacing, for that matter (such as the text-to-speech
> synthesizers
> often used by visually impaired users).

The debate is not over the use of quoting or even which character is
used for the quote character (since even that is variable since no
authoritative standard exists). The debate is over you adding a space
BEFORE the quote character.

> I'm also not inclined to change it at this point for the sake of
> accommodating the idiosyncracies of some provably-awful
> Johnny-come-lately
> "newsreader" (like Outhouse Excuse, for example).

Outlook Express doesn't have a problem displaying your posts that have a
space prepended to the quote character. Far Canal is the one having the
problem with formatting because of your unique quoting style which does
not appear conformant to the de facto convention. I would agree that it
is the fault of his NNTP client, Gravity, of not being able to ignore
contiguous whitespace characters before the quote character and he will
have to contact the programmer's to fix that. But that behavior (of
ingoring preceding contiguous whitespace characters) is needed only to
obviate irregular quoting styles. From what I've seen so far describing
the Usenet standard for quoting, the quote character must be in position
1 on the line, and a space character is not allowed to be a quoting
character (i.e., it must be a visible and printable character).

Oh, and since Usenet convention is to limit the signature to 3 or 4
lines, you aren't conformant there, either. Because there are no
authoritative standards regarding quoting (outside of MIME) or
signatures, it's not that your style is wrong (you can't be wrong if
there is no rule to disobey) but rather that they are non-conventional
based on those same de facto standards you extol regarding netiquette.

http://www.newsreaders.com/guide/sigs.html
"Signatures, or "sigs" should be short, typically no more than 3 or 4
lines, ..."

http://www.xs4all.nl/~js/gnksa/gnksa.txt
Good Netkeeping Seal of Approval
"Separate signatures correctly, and don't use excessive ones"
"A widely accepted standard is the so-called McQuary limit: up to 4
lines, each up to a maximum of 80 characters."

I'm sure there are lots of articles around claiming to define the de
facto conventions but since you profess to be the expert then you
already know that prepending a space to the quote character and
appending excessive signatures is non-conformant with those
non-authoritative standards. Since the RFCs are often established to
standardize long-standing conventions, it is surprising that these
topics have not been standardized. Maybe it infringes on the
"creativity" (i.e., non-standardness) that so many would prefer to
exercise as it would, for example, cut down on all those signatures with
cutsy irrelevant message-of-the-day quips being added to the signatures,
or using them to bloat the poster's ego as though anyone cares about
their mini-resumé, or to slide in some covert spam under the guise of a
help post. We certainly don't want to use a consistent de facto quoting
style that is recognized by all NNTP clients regardless of your personal
opinions declaring everything else is **** other than the god-like
wisdom you exercised in your choice of an NNTP client. Rather we want
the developers to code lots more to handle all those abnormal or
"creative" quoting styles. Even if Gravity were the only NNTP client
that did not handle space(s) prepended to the quote character, how does
that alter the fact that the de facto convention that I've seen starts
with a visible and printable quote character, not a space? The lack of
one NNTP client to detect and handle a particular peculiar quoting style
is not the fault of the NNTP client but rather of the poster's
non-conventional quoting style.

So beyond all the arguments as to what is or is not standard based on an
RFC or some unwritten conventions, why do you feel that you must prepend
a space before the quote character? I think yours is the first that
I've seen where the poster actually added more whitespace (and before
the quote character) rather using the convention or actually trying to
compress out any spaces.


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