[Info-vax] Real Usenet clients, was: Re: backups and compaction or nocompaction might be better

[Richard B. Gilbert]

On 1/31/2013 12:14 AM, AEF wrote:
> On Jan 29, 2:13 pm, Simon Clubley <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-
> Earth.UFP> wrote:
>> On 2013-01-29, Stephen Hoffman <seaoh... at hoffmanlabs.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On 2013-01-29 17:47:04 +0000, Simon Clubley said:
>>
>>>> On 2013-01-29, Stephen Hoffman <seaoh... at hoffmanlabs.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>>>> ps: Get yourself a news reader for your preferred platform and a (free)
>>>>> account on Endless September, or one of the other (free) nntp servers
>>>>> available.
>>
>>>> $ set response/mode=good_natured
>>
>>>> That's a bit of a change from you. :-)
>>
>>> Um, OK.
>>
>>> I've changed my opinion on server uptime and on some other topics, but
>>> I don't recall switching sides on the morass that is Google Groups.
>>
>>> Corrections and objections here are welcome, of course.
>>
>> [snip Hoff's quoted message]
>>
>> In previous discussions, when Google Groups started, for example, including
>> HTML and XML escape entities in messages as well as encoding messages as
>> one very long line per paragraph, the impression you gave at the time was
>> that since Google was doing this it was suddenly ok, and we should just
>> accept it.
>>
>> Based on what you say here, that may not be what you intended to say, but
>> that's how it came across at the time.
>>
>> Simon.
>>
>> PS: I'm not talking about things like encoding 8-bit non-UK/non-US
>> characters for display in a 7-bit environment; that's just the reality of
>> of today's international environment. I'm talking about all the other
>> things they did such as, for example, HTML and XML escaping common
>> characters.
>>
>> PPS: Regarding the line length issue; if you ever look at the raw source
>> of a message generated using Google Mail, you will see that Google break
>> long lines into lines less than 80 characters in length (or at least they
>> used to do when I last checked a few months ago). I see no reason why
>> Google could not use the same code in their Usenet client as well.
>>
>> --
>> Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
>> Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world
>
> I ask again:
>
> I've been using Google Groups for posting to and reading this
> newsgroup for years, and no one here has EVER complained about the
> formatting of my posts. They _have_ complained about content (!), but
> never formatting. Am I missing something here?
>
> AEF
>

I don't believe that I've ever criticized the format of your messages 
unless you are one of those rare individuals who's messages contain
lines longer than 132 characters.

Some people, thankfully few, post messages containing 2,000 to 3,000 
characters without line breaks, e.g. <cr><lf>

Difficult to read, to say the least!

I learned to type on a manually powered typewriter which would hit the
end of the carriage and overstrike and any additional keystrokes!