Quoted material in posts (was Re: What does Python fix?)

[Peter Hansen]

Alex Martelli wrote:
>
> Martin von Loewis wrote:
> >
> > Joseph A Knapka <jknapka at earthlink.net> writes:
> >>
> >> I agree with everything Mr. Marttilla wrote about Google:
> >> it is a severe PITA to follow a discussion there, when
> >> everyone is following cultural norms re. posting style.
> >
> > Isn't that a Google problem, then: Ask them to present articles in a
> > different form. If everybody follows the conventions, it can't be
> > difficult to produce some alternative view automatically.
> 
> What form would you propose?  Some option switch to hide quoted
> material?  I don't think that would make most posts easy to read.

This would not be a good idea for other reasons.  Quoted
material is not just "context" the way most people 
habitually refer to it.  It actually *adds* information.

When I respond with _edited_ quoted material (as opposed to 
just copying the original as I did in this unusual case),
I am actually showing the parts of the original post which
I thought were worth addressing, and possibly I'm even 
modifying them to more closely fit my mental image of the
original points as I understood them while I responded.
I may do this by removing text, (very rarely) reordering
paragraphs, inserting my own comments or questions, and so 
forth.

In other words, although the information is made up of the
original author's words, I'm actually changing the information
present, in principle to match the pattern in my own head 
at the time of my reply.  This may or may not exactly match 
what the original author intended to say, and the
subsequent flame war will doubtless reveal whether that is
in fact the case...  (but note that even if it doesn't
match, it is _not_ the case that I made a mistake by 
editing the material since this was not an explicit attempt 
to preserve the original text.)

So please don't remove my quoted material to "improve 
readability" because you will be changing what I said!
If you do, remove my signature and email address from the 
article, because it is not mine (but you would probably
be violating some of my rights in that case).

(This viewpoint is of course not shared by those lazy souls
who insist on top- or bottom-posting without editing the
material at all.)

-Peter Hansen