From: oldernow@dev.null   
      
   On 2024-04-17, Richmond  wrote:   
      
   >> Seriously? You can't trim that 107 lines of textural   
   >> nightmare down to a quote serving as the context for   
   >> your one line of response so that a multitude of others   
   >> don't have to waste their time scrolling and struggling   
   >> to extract context from a mess?   
   >   
   > I have defined a key in Gnus which when I press it goes   
   > straight to the end of articles. Unfortunately the latest   
   > craze is to put a response in the middle of several pages   
   > of quoted text, so then I have to scroll up to find it.   
      
   Aye yi yi....   
      
   Maybe I'm just hyper-judgemental, but it really bothers   
   me when people are half-assed in ways that inconvenience   
   others. To me it's obvious that working harder to not   
   inconvenience others *alone* would dramatically alter   
   society and interactions for the better.   
      
   Yes, I can throw a large glass vase in the middle of the   
   highway and never look back or think about it again. But   
   now scores or more others have to avoid it, possibly wind   
   up in vehicle accidents over it, and still others have to   
   clean it up while causing traffic backups to do so.   
      
   So (back to USENET posts).... sure, inserting a needle of   
   a response in the middle of a haystack of other text isn't   
   on the same level as the road example. But I'd argue that   
   there's some number of such inconveniences that *combined*   
   rise to the level of the road example.   
      
   And then multiply that by the majority of people being   
   unthoughtful of others, and next thing you know people   
   are concluding that "hell is other people"....   
      
   > I was wondering about writing something which just removed   
   > all the nested quoting except the first level.   
      
   It's tough because there's probably not enough quoting   
   consistency to create that functionality in a reasonable   
   amount of time - and then be constantly encountering new   
   cases that cause one to ultimately spend more time on that   
   functionality than doing the posting/responding you really   
   want to do.   
      
   But see how others' not being able to do a little work has   
   lead to the both of us - and many more - having to possibly   
   create a workaround? I'm friggin' tired of having to work   
   around  others' thoughtless slop!   
      
   Once upon a time it hit me that the real primary goal of   
   law is to create a *predictable* (read: parse-able) social   
   environment so that people can spend more time/energy   
   being productive/creative than scratching their heads   
   while cursing their way through workarounds to others'   
   unpredictable/un-parse-able messes. Being able to *count*   
   on others not stealing changes the social game in a *huge*   
   way. Same for other anti-social behaviors. Sure, there's   
   also hurt in such that I'm not trying to discount. But   
   I think the bigger problem is the downtime and energy   
   waste for lots of others, which winds up being felt by   
   society in other ways. Is the guy that had to wait two   
   hours in some unnecessary road cleanup backup more likely   
   to hit his wife/kid when he gets home? I have to believe   
   the answer is 'yes', especially if that was just one of   
   several inconveniences he had to *unnecessarily* endure.   
      
   I emphasized "unnecessarily" because we all know the   
   difference between unavoidable "act of God" or "dumb   
   luck" inconvenience, and arguably very avoidable social   
   peer inconvenience.   
      
   > This is an emotive subject for some, they will accuse   
   > you of snipping things in an attempt to deny they were   
   > ever said.   
      
   It's all so ridiculous: instantiations of individuality in   
   the self-proclaimed acme of creation are almost always more   
   concerned with being seen to be wrong / misunderstood /   
   misquoted than with making small behavioral changes that   
   could amplify to a far better society.   
      
   I keep telling my wife it's looking like we're going to be   
   getting out of the burning shit house (courtesy of death)   
   *just* in the nick of time, because if people can't be   
   decent enough to make an effort against against textural   
   entropy for the sake of others/society, they certainly   
   can't be expected to do anything that takes *real* effort   
   for the sake of others/society....   
      
   --   
   oldernow   
   xyz001 at nym.hush.com   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)