tlug: Re: excessive white space (was: TurboLinux on SlashDot)

[Rex Walters <rex@example.com>]

>>>>> Scott Stone writes:  (on 29 Oct 98)

> Hey, I have an idea, let's modify majordomo a bit to filter _excessive
> white space_ from TLUG posts - ie, numerous consecutive newlines, that
> sort of thing. (hint to John :) ).

Freeow!  This from someone with a 7 line sig who's posts frequently
include more quoted text than new?!! :-)

Extra (even excessive) white space is by far the easiest thing you can
do to improve the legibility of your mail (or source code, for that
matter) *without* chewing up bandwidth (blank lines only cost a byte).

Two of my pet peeves are excessive inclusion of quoted text and jamming
new text right up against quoted text without any intervening
whitespace.  Makes it hard to find what someone has written:

    Joe writes:
    > blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, di blah blah blabbedy blah blah
    > blah, di blah blah blabbedy blah blah blah, di blah blah blabbedy blah
    > blah blah, di blah blah blabbedy blah blah blah, di blah blah blabbedy
    > blah blah blah, di blah blah blabbedy
    yaketty yack yack yack

versus

    Joe writes:

    > blah blah blah, di blah blah blabbedy

    yaketty yack yack yack

Fortunately, my mail reader (mutt) has the *wonderful* "T" command which
toggles the display of quoted text.  It's sooooo nice to be able to
display only what the poster has written with a single keystroke.

Whitespace rulez!
-- 
Rex

P.S.  I have philisophical objections to mailing list software mucking
      with *headers* of messages, much less the body of messages.
      Adding the "tlug:" to subject lines bugs me.  Adding a footer to
      every single message bugs me even worse.  Mangling text by
      eliminating consecutive newlines would be unspeakable.

      Now if you had suggested making majordomo refuse posts that
      contain less new text than quoted text .... :-)
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