[Dixonary] OT: Message Formatting

[Guerri Stevens]

Mostly for Paul: I use Thunderbird to deal with my Email. When voting, I
usually state the numbers of the words for which I'm voting. Below that,
I list the words, as announced, by quoting back the announcement message
and deleting all the definitions except the ones I've chosen.

That didn't work, at least in any simple way, with you message
requesting votes. How was that message formatted? Hmm, maybe I should
have set Tbird to plain text or something, then copied and pasted.
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Guerri

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[Paul Keating]

I just pasted the text into the Google Groups edit window and asked its
formatter to provide bullet points and to number the list of defs.

So formatting is Ã* la Google Docs.
On 13 Jul 2014 15:41, "Guerri Stevens" <guerri (AT) guerristevens (DOT) com> wrote:

> Mostly for Paul: I use Thunderbird to deal with my Email. When voting, I
> usually state the numbers of the words for which I'm voting. Below that, I
> list the words, as announced, by quoting back the announcement message and
> deleting all the definitions except the ones I've chosen.
>
> That didn't work, at least in any simple way, with you message requesting
> votes. How was that message formatted? Hmm, maybe I should have set Tbird
> to plain text or something, then copied and pasted.
> --
> Guerri
>
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[Johnb - co.uk]

Paul

The probvem with doing what you did - ie provide a formatted list that
way - is that if, as I do, one deletes the defs other than those chosen
then the result is a list with two elements - no's 1 and 2 which is
extremely unhelpful (unless one votes for #1 and #2)

so -- first thing I have to do in the reply is to add the numbers to the
def itself and then remove the list format and then delete and etc


*John*
On 13/07/2014 15:23, Paul Keating wrote:
>
> I just pasted the text into the Google Groups edit window and asked
> its formatter to provide bullet points and to number the list of defs.
>
> So formatting is Ã* la Google Docs.
>
> On 13 Jul 2014 15:41, "Guerri Stevens" <guerri (AT) guerristevens (DOT) com
> <mailto:guerri (AT) guerristevens (DOT) com>> wrote:
>
> Mostly for Paul: I use Thunderbird to deal with my Email. When
> voting, I usually state the numbers of the words for which I'm
> voting. Below that, I list the words, as announced, by quoting
> back the announcement message and deleting all the definitions
> except the ones I've chosen.
>
> That didn't work, at least in any simple way, with you message
> requesting votes. How was that message formatted? Hmm, maybe I
> should have set Tbird to plain text or something, then copied and
> pasted.
> --
> Guerri
>
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[Daniel Widdis]

This assumes there is a need to repost the definitions you voted for
rather than just their numbers.

On 7/13/14, 9:20 AM, Johnb - co.uk wrote:
> Paul
>
> The probvem with doing what you did - ie provide a formatted list that
> way - is that if, as I do, one deletes the defs other than those
> chosen then the result is a list with two elements - no's 1 and 2
> which is extremely unhelpful (unless one votes for #1 and #2)
>
> so -- first thing I have to do in the reply is to add the numbers to
> the def itself and then remove the list format and then delete and etc
>

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[Johnb - co.uk]

Dan,

Agreed *if you quote* but I have done so for some years and I am not
alone in so doing.

My comment was addressed to the perceived problem.

Paul's explanation of how he posted it does makes me realise that**the
dominating effects of list formatting are different by source. I have
pasted lists into emails before without them holding the list format
when received. It must be a function not only of the list formatting but
also the mail client. As I haven't changed mail software for years then
this "effect" that we are seeing this time is a function of the source -
Google Docs
*
**John**nyB

*On 13/07/2014 20:03, Daniel Widdis wrote:
> This assumes there is a need to repost the definitions you voted for
> rather than just their numbers.
>
> On 7/13/14, 9:20 AM, Johnb - co.uk wrote:
>> Paul
>>
>> The probvem with doing what you did - ie provide a formatted list
>> that way - is that if, as I do, one deletes the defs other than those
>> chosen then the result is a list with two elements - no's 1 and 2
>> which is extremely unhelpful (unless one votes for #1 and #2)
>>
>> so -- first thing I have to do in the reply is to add the numbers to
>> the def itself and then remove the list format and then delete and etc
>>
>
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[Paul Keating]

John,

I take your point, but ...

Up to 2 years ago, Google Groups was doing a spectacularly incompetent job of displaying incoming emails encoded in Latin-1 or Windows-1252 (which constitute the majority) if they contained anything beyond pure ascii. I reported the issue, with byte-level explanation of what had gone wrong, to Google, twice. But they showed no inclination to fix it. I also explained it to the group in round 2312.

To avoid these issues, I no longer email public postings, but instead paste raw text into the Google Groups edit window, do last-minute formatting there, and post.

Now, as we all know, bulleted and numbered lists are paragraph styles: the indentation, bullets and numbers are not part of the text, but typographical sugar.

The behaviour you describe didn't happen in the past because people tended to post preformatted messages with indentation, bullets and numbers already included as text. The problem with that kind of preformatting is that it has to make assumptions about the displayed line length on the target screen. If those assumptions turn out wrong, the result is ugly line breaks.

The only other option is to leave word-wrapping and indentation up to the receiving email client. And that means specifying a numbered list as a bunch of paragraphs with a numbered-list style. Which interferes with your cut'n'paste action, because, there being only two paragraphs left, they get renumbered 1 and 2.

I sympathize with your reaction: I have inadvertently broken the rule of choosing the course of least amazement. But at the same time, you will, I think, see that you cannot expect posted messages to behave the same way under all transformations at the client side.

P



Paul

The probvem with doing what you did - ie provide a formatted list that way - is that if, as I do, one deletes the defs other than those chosen then the result is a list with two elements - no's 1 and 2 which is extremely unhelpful (unless one votes for #1 and #2)

so -- first thing I have to do in the reply is to add the numbers to the def itself and then remove the list format and then delete and etc


John
On 13/07/2014 15:23, Paul Keating wrote:
I just pasted the text into the Google Groups edit window and asked its formatter to provide bullet points and to number the list of defs.
So formatting is Ã* la Google Docs.
On 13 Jul 2014 15:41, "Guerri Stevens" <guerri (AT) guerristevens (DOT) com> wrote:
Mostly for Paul: I use Thunderbird to deal with my Email. When voting, I usually state the numbers of the words for which I'm voting. Below that, I list the words, as announced, by quoting back the announcement message and deleting all the definitions except the ones I've chosen.

That didn't work, at least in any simple way, with you message requesting votes. How was that message formatted? Hmm, maybe I should have set Tbird to plain text or something, then copied and pasted.
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--
Paul Keating
The Hague

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[Daniel Widdis]

Thanks for explaining so eloquently.

My much less eloquent explanation for my reply boils down to simple
principles.

Firstly, I am fond of standards, and annoyed at software that does not
display (or process) standard formatting properly. This is one reason I
am fond of Firefox (and other software by Mozilla). It presents content
in the manner in which (presumably) it was intended by the sender. In
particular, I rather enjoyed the numbered list format, with its numbers
outside the indentation.

Secondly, I am fond of neither sender nor recipient being required to
adhere to any particular formatting convention or rules. Whether
someone posts by email (even with a standards-ignoring Microsoft
product) or on the web, they should simply be able to have their text
posted in the format they intend the reader to see it, and the reader
should be able to read said text without having to use a particular
client, browser, or install a certain font.

That said, I recognize the frustration with replying to an unnumbered
list. I do frequently quote back individual definitions that I vote for
(a habit I may have picked up from John or others who have copied him),
especially when I use the list as a means of selectively eliminating
definitions I won't vote for. But when I do so I become the sender, and
reply formatting is somewhat less standardized, and thus I accept its
limitations and work around them. It's rare enough that I can manage,
and prefer not to constrain the way someone else sends a message if only
to make my replies easier.

Dan


On 7/13/14, 3:41 PM, Paul Keating wrote:
> Re: [Dixonary] OT: Message Formatting John,
>
> I take your point, but ...

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[Dodi Schultz]

Yes, quite a few players give both the number and the def when they vote.
I'm another who does so.

--Dodi

===============================

On 7/13/2014 4:25 PM, Johnb - co.uk wrote:
> Dan,
>
> Agreed *if you quote* but I have done so for some years and I am not
> alone in so doing.
>
> My comment was addressed to the perceived problem.
>
> Paul's explanation of how he posted it does makes me realise that**the
> dominating effects of list formatting are different by source. I have
> pasted lists into emails before without them holding the list format when
> received. It must be a function not only of the list formatting but also
> the mail client. As I haven't changed mail software for years then this
> "effect" that we are seeing this time is a function of the source -
> Google Docs
> *
> **John**nyB
> *

*=============================*
> *
> *On 13/07/2014 20:03, Daniel Widdis wrote:
>> This assumes there is a need to repost the definitions you voted for
>> rather than just their numbers.
=============================
>>
>> On 7/13/14, 9:20 AM, Johnb - co.uk wrote:
>>> Paul
>>>
>>> The probvem with doing what you did - ie provide a formatted list that
>>> way - is that if, as I do, one deletes the defs other than those chosen
>>> then the result is a list with two elements - no's 1 and 2 which is
>>> extremely unhelpful (unless one votes for #1 and #2)
>>>
>>> so -- first thing I have to do in the reply is to add the numbers to
>>> the def itself and then remove the list format and then delete and etc

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[Judy Madnick]

Same here. But I didn't this round because of the formatting.

Judy

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."



Original message
From: "Dodi Schultz" <DodiSchultz (AT) verizon (DOT) net>
To: dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com;
Dated: 7/13/2014 7:15:38 PM
Subject: Re: [Dixonary] OT: Message Formatting

Yes, quite a few players give both the number and the def when they vote.
I'm another who does so.

--Dodi

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[Guerri Stevens]

I like to post the definitions themselves, with their numbers. Sometimes
it provides clarity to the dealer as well, such as when I am dithering
around among 3 or more and remember to post the defs with numbers
correctly but forget to delete from the actual vote the ones that I
decided against. Not that I would ever do that, of cours (cough, cough).

I like others posting the defs because I don't always (like in "never")
remember exactly what the number of my own def happens to be and I like
to keep track of how many voted for it, if any.

Guerri
On 7/13/2014 3:03 PM, Daniel Widdis wrote:
> This assumes there is a need to repost the definitions you voted for
> rather than just their numbers.
>
> On 7/13/14, 9:20 AM, Johnb - co.uk wrote:
>

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