<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
<meta name="generator" content="pandoc" />
<title></title>
<style type="text/css">code{white-space: pre;}</style>
</head>
<body>
<p>Hi again,</p>
<p>For starters I want to point out that the line-wrapping, and overall formatting, of the email in which this email is a reply looks fine. If you keep this up I believe there will be far less comments regarding your formatting.</p>
<p>On 2016-12-13 23:44, Wilawar wrote:</p>
<blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;color:#500050">
<pre><code> I hope everyone is reading the version into which the editor of FastMail
didn’t insert additional line breaks – apparently I broke threading when
sending it, but it should be easy to find; unfortunately, I see no way
to add a 'References' tag (which I’ve seen being used on other lists)
to my mail, with which I could link the other one back in.
I also haven’t found a way to get a preview of the mail as it will be
sent, as sending it to me will render me unable to edit it afterwards,
copying the text into a new mail opens up new possibilities to fail.</code></pre>
<blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;color:#500050">
<pre><code> all I see are consistently formatted emails
that has not received any complaint about readability.</code></pre>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;color:#500050">
<pre><code> Ok, maybe my point is so obvious that you just don’t see it.</code></pre>
</blockquote>
<p><code>:-/</code></p>
<blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;color:#500050">
<blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;color:#500050">
<blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;color:#500050">
<pre><code> After the topic had been raised, I’ve explicitly looked for
formatting differences when I went through new messages on this
list. I’ve noticed only two obvious differences: First, that many of
you seem to end your lines either at around 80 or at around 72
characters (as defined in some old advice) and second, that you seem
to introduce many small paragraphs for no apparent reason.</code></pre>
<p>I think the above speaks for itself. How?</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>That many of them, quote, <em>“seem to end your lines either at around 80 or at around 72”</em>. Given that we talk about formatting, and at many times the length of lines, I certainly see relevance in the quoted paragraph.</p>
<blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;color:#500050">
<blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;color:#500050">
<pre><code> I have been telling you to look at other mails on the mailing-list
given that these have not received the same sort of feedback as the
ones you are sending.</code></pre>
<p>I’ve been telling you that it was no use for me to do that.</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>I understand that now, and I guess my attempt of providing examples of how others reply to <code>vlc-devel</code> was a failure.</p>
<blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;color:#500050">
<blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;color:#500050">
<pre><code> Unwilling to give you information?</code></pre>
<p>You missed a ‘more’ and apparently, after that, just desynced.</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>I do not understand what you are referring to, but I guess it does not matter.</p>
<blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;color:#500050">
<blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;color:#500050">
<pre><code> It is not an old habit, mailing-lists in general follow the same
(sometimes unwritten) guidelines as the one we have on `vlc-devel`,
for several different reasons.
One of them being that since many of the messages on `vlc-devel`
contains patches, `monospace` rendering are used consistently (which
is the major problem with the formatting you are sending your emails
as).
If you would like to have an alternative view of the message you are
sending, do what I do and send both `text/plain` and `text/html` (or
whatever it is that you prefer). Please, do not expect clients to
render `text/plain` with a proportional font (as you recently implied
on IRC).</code></pre>
</blockquote>
<pre><code> You did not address the issue of line length at all nor have you, through
this whole conversation, managed to give me a positive instruction on
which to use; for this mail, I have tried wrapping at 72, as this seems
to be what you want. (!?) I find it hard to read, whatever.</code></pre>
</blockquote>
<p>I have, and as you yourself have observed there is no <em>exact</em> limit to the length of lines, but most would agree that extensively long lines does not aid readability.</p>
<blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;color:#500050">
<pre><code> As I already said on IRC but want to preserve for public record here:
You could have told me at some point that I should optimize my
mails for monospace rendering, yet that point never came up – quite
weird for something you consider _the major issue_, don’t you think?</code></pre>
</blockquote>
<p>I think my point is not coming across, and the above is a very passive aggressive way of getting <em>your</em> point across. It reminds me of many time in the past where I have tried to be of help, but what I get back is that I have not explained something in a manner that you could comprehend, and given the confusion that followed; it is my fault.</p>
<p>I <em>try</em> to be helpful, but there I cannot read your mind.</p>
<blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;color:#500050">
<pre><code> On IRC, he replied with something along the lines of 'You should have
known that not everybody is using the same proportional font you use',
which is a straight strawman, as I never even implied that you all do.</code></pre>
</blockquote>
<p>For readers of this thread, in the above <em>“me”</em> refers to me, <code>refp</code>. I guess it should be <em>“he”</em>, so it’s probably just a silly typo.</p>
<blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;color:#500050">
<pre><code> It also doesn’t explain why he didn’t just make this explicit – on the
one hand, he said he had believed I had already known this, on the other,
I obviously didn’t. What!?</code></pre>
</blockquote>
<p>I imagine the above being very hard to follow for someone who was not active in <code>#videolan @ freenode</code> at the time where that discussion took place.</p>
<p>When talking about line-wrapping, you brought up the fact that it would render in a more correct manner for people using a proportional font, like you do.</p>
<pre><code>22:01:27 Wilawar$ Also, using a proportional font helps, I’m
using one myself</code></pre>
<p>To which I replied that most active people on <code>vlc-devel</code> uses a monospace font (given that there are a lot of code nested within comments, which means monospace yields better readability).</p>
<p>We then had the below exchange, where I tried to explain why I have not explicitly mentioned the family of font used:</p>
<pre><code> 22:21:31 Wilawar$ If this is the major problem, how come you only mention
it now and haven’t mentioned it ever before?
...
22:22:56 refp$ Wilawar: because I 1) thought you knew about it 2) did not
expect everything to use the same proportional font as you
when rendering emails 3) it is a direct reply to your
wording pretty much saying that there's no argument for
wrapping at XX characters</code></pre>
<blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;color:#500050">
<pre><code> The hint about sending plaintext and HTML versions is useful, at least –
I assumed it was a deprecated approach that shouldn’t be used.
Although I would still have to make sure that the plaintext rendering is
OK, so there is not that much value in it for me …</code></pre>
</blockquote>
<p>As previously, I am trying to be helpful.</p>
<blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;color:#500050">
<blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;color:#500050">
<pre><code> It is not limited to insertions of empty lines, but that could
certainly help in some of the scenarios.</code></pre>
<p>I merely don’t know more than that you are inserting lots of empty lines even after small breaks; you missed a chance to tell me <em>why</em> you are doing this, to enable me to make informed decisions you can agree with by myself, in the future.</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>Because I find it more readable.</p>
<p>I have (up until the point of your email) not received any complaints about it. If my way of writing is hard to follow, and/or confusing, I will be happy to adjust it so that it follows community praxis.</p>
<blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;color:#500050">
<blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;color:#500050">
<pre><code> I will let someone else reply to this part given that you are now
implying (over IRC) that my opinion is one of a kind, and that no one
besides me see the issues I've previously described.</code></pre>
<p>For the record, I did not do that (and it’s not the first time you accuse me of this) and it even somewhat contradicts the very citation you are replying to.</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>I stand by my point, but got nothing to add to it.</p>
<p>Best Regards,<br />
Filip Roséen</p>
</body>
</html>