Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?
There's so much garbage in a Google search any more that they're becoming nearly useless. Between 'sponsored' hits and ones that have little or no relevance but throw in words to get included, I find as often as not that IF Google finds what I'm looking for, it'll be several pages in. At some point there may be a Next Great Search Engine, at least I hope so. -- Mike Nolan
Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?
Hi Mike, > On 16. Jan, 2021, at 18:29, Michael Nolan wrote: > > There's so much garbage in a Google search any more that they're becoming > nearly useless. Between 'sponsored' hits and ones that have little or no > relevance but throw in words to get included, I find as often as not that IF > Google finds what I'm looking for, it'll be several pages in. > > At some point there may be a Next Great Search Engine, at least I hope so. I always put "postgres" or "postgresql" in front of my searches. That almost always yields results one of which contains useful information. Or use duckduckgo or some other search engine. Cheers, Paul
Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?
On 2021-Jan-16, Hemil Ruparel wrote: > Okay. I will not reply to them. Enough mental cycles wasted One way you could help, is by learning what top-posting is, learning not to do it, and teaching others the same. Same with not quoting entire messages on reply. -- Álvaro Herrera Valdivia, Chile
Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?
On Sat, 16 Jan 2021, Paul Förster wrote: Or use duckduckgo or some other search engine. +1 Rich
Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?
> On Jan 16, 2021, at 11:00 AM, Rich Shepard wrote: > > On Sat, 16 Jan 2021, Paul Förster wrote: > >> Or use duckduckgo or some other search engine. > > +1 > > Rich > And I apologize for a couple of toppers in this thread. Recent changes to mailer >
Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?
On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 02:50:58PM -0300, Álvaro Herrera wrote: > On 2021-Jan-16, Hemil Ruparel wrote: > > > Okay. I will not reply to them. Enough mental cycles wasted > > One way you could help, is by learning what top-posting is, learning not > to do it, and teaching others the same. Same with not quoting entire > messages on reply. That "quoting entire messages on reply" is something I see far too often here. I have been meaning to mention this problem. Thousands of people are reading postings here, so it pays to take time to trim down what others have to view. -- Bruce Momjian https://momjian.us EnterpriseDB https://enterprisedb.com The usefulness of a cup is in its emptiness, Bruce Lee
Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?
El día sábado, enero 16, 2021 a las 02:50:58p. m. -0300, Alvaro Herrera escribió: > One way you could help, is by learning what top-posting is, learning not > to do it, and teaching others the same. Same with not quoting entire > messages on reply. +1 matthias -- Matthias Apitz, ✉ g...@unixarea.de, http://www.unixarea.de/ +49-176-38902045 Public GnuPG key: http://www.unixarea.de/key.pub ¡Con Cuba no te metas! «» Don't mess with Cuba! «» Leg Dich nicht mit Kuba an! http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2020/12/25/en-video-con-cuba-no-te-metas/
Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?
On 2021-Jan-16, Bruce Momjian wrote: > On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 02:50:58PM -0300, Álvaro Herrera wrote: > > On 2021-Jan-16, Hemil Ruparel wrote: > > > > > Okay. I will not reply to them. Enough mental cycles wasted > > > > One way you could help, is by learning what top-posting is, learning not > > to do it, and teaching others the same. Same with not quoting entire > > messages on reply. > > That "quoting entire messages on reply" is something I see far too often > here. I have been meaning to mention this problem. Thousands of people > are reading postings here, so it pays to take time to trim down what > others have to view. Yes. Gmail, by hiding the quoted part of the message, has taught people that it's okay to leave the whole thing in place. For most of the rest of the world, it's an annoyance. -- Álvaro Herrera39°49'30"S 73°17'W "After a quick R of TFM, all I can say is HOLY CR** THAT IS COOL! PostgreSQL was amazing when I first started using it at 7.2, and I'm continually astounded by learning new features and techniques made available by the continuing work of the development team." Berend Tober, http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers/2007-08/msg01009.php
Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?
On Sat, 16 Jan 2021, Bruce Momjian wrote: That "quoting entire messages on reply" is something I see far too often here. I have been meaning to mention this problem. Thousands of people are reading postings here, so it pays to take time to trim down what others have to view. Bruce, This has become most common over the past few years. It may be the result of people using their pocket computers (sold as 'mobile phones') for email and they don't take the time to delete extraneous lines or scroll to the bottom to type their reply. Rich
Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?
> On Jan 16, 2021, at 12:26 PM, Rich Shepard wrote: > > On Sat, 16 Jan 2021, Bruce Momjian wrote: > >> Bruce, > > This has become most common over the past few years. It may be the result of > people using their pocket computers (sold as 'mobile phones') for email and > they don't take the time to delete extraneous lines or scroll to the bottom > to type their reply. > > Rich > > Typically we hear “bottom post” when we should hear “trim appropriately and bottom post” It’s not just people on phones. Work place mail boxes are stuffed with multiple copies a same spread sheet as mailers now “inline” those.
Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?
Alvaro Herrera writes: > On 2021-Jan-16, Bruce Momjian wrote: >> That "quoting entire messages on reply" is something I see far too often >> here. I have been meaning to mention this problem. Thousands of people >> are reading postings here, so it pays to take time to trim down what >> others have to view. > Yes. Gmail, by hiding the quoted part of the message, has taught people > that it's okay to leave the whole thing in place. For most of the rest > of the world, it's an annoyance. Top-posting goes along with that. The gmail style of top-posting and not trimming what's quoted is sort of okay, as long as you don't actually need to read any of what's quoted (but then why bother quoting it...) The combination of bottom-posting and not trimming what you quoted is actually the worst of all possible worlds, because then people are forced to scroll through a whole lot of stuff to see what you added. I see way too many people doing that lately, and to be honest I usually stop reading their messages once I see that that's what they did. You should only quote enough to remind the reader of what you're responding to. regards, tom lane
Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?
On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 03:34:32PM -0500, Tom Lane wrote: > Alvaro Herrera writes: > > On 2021-Jan-16, Bruce Momjian wrote: > >> That "quoting entire messages on reply" is something I see far too often > >> here. I have been meaning to mention this problem. Thousands of people > >> are reading postings here, so it pays to take time to trim down what > >> others have to view. > > > Yes. Gmail, by hiding the quoted part of the message, has taught people > > that it's okay to leave the whole thing in place. For most of the rest > > of the world, it's an annoyance. > > Top-posting goes along with that. The gmail style of top-posting and > not trimming what's quoted is sort of okay, as long as you don't actually > need to read any of what's quoted (but then why bother quoting it...) > > The combination of bottom-posting and not trimming what you quoted is > actually the worst of all possible worlds, because then people are > forced to scroll through a whole lot of stuff to see what you added. Agreed. By telling people not to top-post, we have made it worse in many cases. > I see way too many people doing that lately, and to be honest I usually > stop reading their messages once I see that that's what they did. > You should only quote enough to remind the reader of what you're > responding to. That is also what I do. -- Bruce Momjian https://momjian.us EnterpriseDB https://enterprisedb.com The usefulness of a cup is in its emptiness, Bruce Lee
Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?
Michael Nolan writes: > There's so much garbage in a Google search any more that they're becoming > nearly useless. Between 'sponsored' hits and ones that have little or no > relevance but throw in words to get included, I find as often as not that > IF Google finds what I'm looking for, it'll be several pages in. > There is certainly a bit of 'art' or 'black magic' involved when doing a google to find relevant information and the amount of noise in the signal has certainly gotten worse. I find putting the key terms early in your search string can help. However, when dealing with an unfamiliar topic, knowing what those key terms are can be challenging. This is one reason I rarely tell people to 'just google for the answer' or assume they haven't tried when the answer seems quite obvious and easily found for me. The change I've noticed over the last decade or so is the amount of completely wrong or misleading information that is easily found. I rarely use stack overflow sites these days because too often, the accepted or most popular answer is wrong or gets a result, but in a poor manner that is likely to introduce other issues. The one thing I wish people did was provide clear and concise meta data with the information they post. Often, I find it difficult to know, for example, how old the information is or which version of the software it applies to. When it comes to PG, I think we are very lucky. In general, I find the official documentation to be of the highest quality. Sometimes, I can be a little dense and a few more examples would be useful, but I understand how hard getting the balance between enough examples and concise information can be. It is often in this forum where I find some of the most useful information and ideas. I really appreciate those contributors who not only provide an answer to a question, but also include URLs to other sources which frequently contain more background or details. Pointers to such valuable resources from those more knowledgeable can save hours of googling and wading through ill informed and misguided advice. -- Tim Cross
Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?
Top/Bottom points um, er elided. Mail has always been well threaded, retaining which message lead to which replies. How did we get away from relying on that (naked posting)?
Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?
On 1/16/21 3:01 PM, Rob Sargent wrote: Top/Bottom points um, er elided. Mail has always been well threaded, retaining which message lead to which replies. How did we get away from relying on that (naked posting)? Outlook. -- Angular momentum makes the world go 'round.
Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?
Hi Bruce, > On 16. Jan, 2021, at 19:36, Bruce Momjian wrote: > > That "quoting entire messages on reply" is something I see far too often > here. I have been meaning to mention this problem. Thousands of people > are reading postings here, so it pays to take time to trim down what > others have to view. +1. Also, could it be possible to make messages plain text? I see a lot of varying fancy fonts and I hate that. I even hate it more when people post messages not properly trimmed or messages that need formatting preserved such as select output, i.e. table data, explain plans, etc. Proportional fonts (Outlook with its darn Arial) is one of the worst... And then there's people posting screen shots instead of copy/paste... :-( What a world. Actually, the old Netiquette from the 1990's had it right. But then, who knows about that anymore. I think, an automatic conversion of incoming posts to plain text and dropping all non plain text attachments would help a lot already. Cheers, Paul
Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?
On 1/16/21 2:28 PM, Paul Förster wrote: Hi Bruce, On 16. Jan, 2021, at 19:36, Bruce Momjian wrote: That "quoting entire messages on reply" is something I see far too often here. I have been meaning to mention this problem. Thousands of people are reading postings here, so it pays to take time to trim down what others have to view. +1. Also, could it be possible to make messages plain text? I see a lot of varying fancy fonts and I hate that. I even hate it more when people post messages not properly trimmed or messages that need formatting preserved such as select output, i.e. table data, explain plans, etc. Proportional fonts (Outlook with its darn Arial) is one of the worst... That is trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube. Too many GUI email interfaces these days that use 'advanced` formatting. I use Thunderbird and it allows me to convert incoming to plain text on the fly. Not a perfect system, but it cuts down on a lot of the garish content. And then there's people posting screen shots instead of copy/paste... :-( That is a learning curve thing. Many people don't know that copy and paste exists for terminals/GUI's/etc. Most people, once they are pointed in the right direction, will change that habit. That is why I would not advocate dropping non plain text attachments. Take this as a teaching moment and explain the reason why text is a benefit. What a world. Actually, the old Netiquette from the 1990's had it right. But then, who knows about that anymore. I think, an automatic conversion of incoming posts to plain text and dropping all non plain text attachments would help a lot already. Cheers, Paul -- Adrian Klaver adrian.kla...@aklaver.com
Re: Do we need a way to moderate mailing lists?
On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 11:28:37PM +0100, Paul Förster wrote: > Also, could it be possible to make messages plain text? I see a lot of > varying fancy fonts and I hate that. I even hate it more when people > post messages not properly trimmed or messages that need formatting > preserved such as select output, i.e. table data, explain plans, > etc. Proportional fonts (Outlook with its darn Arial) is one of the > worst... > > [...] > > I think, an automatic conversion of incoming posts to plain text and > dropping all non plain text attachments would help a lot already. > > Cheers, > Paul I once wrote a program to do that very thing: http://raf.org/textmail/ https://github.com/raforg/textmail/ It converts everything it can into plain text (using lots of helper applications which also need to be installed), and it deletes everything else, all highly configurable, of course. It might be possible to incorporate it into a mailing list, but perhaps that's a bit draconian. You could probably incorporate it into your own email flow as emails arrive before you see them. I've used procmail for that, but imapfilter (https://github.com/lefcha/imapfilter) might be more appropriate if your email is in an imap account. cheers, raf
