Why googlers never quote and never will (Was: problem with Korn Shell nesting string parameters)

From: Kenny McCormack (gazelle_at_yin.interaccess.com)
Date: 10/02/05 

Date: Sun, 02 Oct 2005 16:22:13 GMT

In article <eu1u03-u19.ln1@rogers.com>,
Chris F.A. Johnson <cfajohnson@gmail.com> wrote:
>On 2005-09-29, iosis.records@gmail.com wrote:
>> To all who were considering replying,
>
> Replying to what?
>
> Please quote enough of the post you are replying to to give the
> context of your own post. This is usenet, not a web forum (though
> it is also bastardized on several web sites). You cannot be sure
> that I can see the previous posts unless you quote them.
>
> When using groups.google.com to reply to a Usenet article, click
> on "show options" at the top of the article, then click on the
> "Reply" at the bottom of the article headers. This will quote the
> previous message in the accepted manner. Trim the parts of it that
> are not relevant to your follow-up.

You (and others, such as Keith) are wasting your breath. They'll never get
it. And I'll tell you why.

Imagine that there's a mouse - and the mouse is the Usenet. You and I can
see that it is a mouse and we behave accordingly. But now there is a class
of users (we'll call them "googlers") that are wearing these funny weird
glasses that make them see not a mouse, but an elephant. Seeing an
elephant (i.e., the Usenet as a web page), they also behave accordingly.
And no amount of verbiage from us is going to convince them that it's not
an elephant - that it is only a mouse.

To make this more clear, to a googler, it doesn't make any sense to "quote"
(whatever the heck that is...), in fact, to do would be absurd, when all
the rest of the articles in the thread are right there in front of their
faces (just as clear as the trunk on that mouse, er, elephant). And no
amount of verbiage from us is going to convince them not to believe what
they see. The point is you can *never* convince someone that what they see
isn't reality. The only way you can address the problem is to help them
fix their eyesight (or help them remove their funny glasses).