The message
from K contains these words:
Rusty_Hinge writes
The message
from K contains these words:

You mean a poster replies to a post, but also replies to another post in
a different dub-branch at the same time?

Yes. Permit me to demonstrate:

Seems unnecessarily complicated to me, and prone to hiccups...

You only see the complication if you ask to. Otherwise it makes reading
smoothly because I don't, for example, see A's reply, then B's reply,
then C's reply to A, then N's reply to B, then back to E's reply to C's
reply A ...
Never had any hiccups.

Yes, but you have to be quite deliberately difficult to go to the bother
of doing that! Most people don't ;-)

Aye, but I have done it before more than once, for reasons other than that...

Also, I've gone right back near to the beginning of the thread to
reinstate comments which had dropped out of the equation.

Anyway, I've been happy with the way ZIMACS works for fifteen years, and
see no need to change things - besides - I'm a beta-tester innit.

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

On 27 Nov, 12:06, geo wrote:
or alternatively set up Outlook Express (which I suspect
already lurks on your machine) but I have no information on how to use
that program.

If you want to use OE, go and find OE quotefix, and wrap it roundf
OE. It fixes the top-posting behaviour and also sorts out some other
shortcomings.

http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/oe-quotefix/

On 27 Nov, 21:51, Janet Conroy Janet.Conroy.
wrote:
Blimey - I seem to have gone from no response to a deluge in an instant.
I was OK with the first couple of replies but now I'm blinded by all
the techy stuff. *I will try to do the newsgroup thing, but I'm still
unclear as to why GardenBanter is so hated by some posters. *Is it
because you have paid some cash to access a kosher newsgroup?

I am pretty relaxed about gardenbanter users, but I do think that the
site creators pulled a fast one by hijacking a public, free, resource
that we contribute to as a community and then passing it off as
something they have created. It's vulgar and rude of them.

Urglers post for the benefit of each other, not the benefit of
commercial operations.

On 27 Nov, 17:22, Rusty_Hinge
wrote:

Googlegropes is worse - they want the whole of Usenet, and because they
can't have it, like people to believe that it's theirs.

WHile I agree with the logic, I work all over the place with a variety
of access methods, and use google groups because if I didn't I would
not be able to post.

In message , Janet Conroy
writes

I really don't want to prolong this thread,

Don't worry Janet, you aren't :-)

in fact I'm beginning to
wish I'd never started it. BUT the anti-GBers seem to have segued from
arguments abour how GB has "stolen" urg, to highly complicated stuff
about sub-branches and sub-threads which are a total mystery to me.


It's the delights of Usenet (or any other forum really I guess, threads
go off in all sorts of odd directions.

Enjoy it if it interests you, otherwise ignore that bit (possibly not so
easy if you read via GB as if you read via a news reader, but he ho :-)
)
--
Chris French

In message ,
Rusty_Hinge writes
The message
from K contains these words:
Yes, but you have to be quite deliberately difficult to go to the bother
of doing that! Most people don't ;-)

Aye, but I have done it before more than once, for reasons other than that...

Also, I've gone right back near to the beginning of the thread to
reinstate comments which had dropped out of the equation.


Yeah, but whatever threading algorithm is used that sort of posting
behaviour is going to leave replies oddly placed.

But it isn't very common.


Anyway, I've been happy with the way ZIMACS works for fifteen years, and
see no need to change things - besides - I'm a beta-tester innit.


Different strokes :-)
--
Chris French

In message ,
Rusty_Hinge writes
The message
from chris French contains these words:

/snip/

I think you misunderstand what Kay means. Turnpike arranges the thread
in a branching tree type arrangement but with all the 'sub branches
connected, not split off into separate threads. As you read through the
thread it presents posts in each sub-thread such that you can follow it
rather more easily than just going in time stamp order.

This seems fine - until a poster refers back to an earlier parting of
the ways, and slides down another branch.


Which rarely happens for starters.

The second is that at least one of the clients which split things thus
split hairs too, and I get up to half a dozen threads all with a
different number of spaces added somewhere in the subject line, and very
often having been re-amalgamated by someone-else's reader, there is no
continuity. Odten, I read replies before I read the text to which the
poster is replying.

You need a better newsreader ;-) Relying on the subject line to thread
is always prone to people editing it etc.

A?

You were complaining about messed up threading as a result of replying
on threading by subject header. I was suggesting there are better ways.


Treading on the references header works much better overall IMO
--
Chris French

The message
from Janet Conroy contains
these words:

I really don't want to prolong this thread, in fact I'm beginning to
wish I'd never started it. BUT the anti-GBers seem to have segued from
arguments abour how GB has "stolen" urg, to highly complicated stuff
about sub-branches and sub-threads which are a total mystery to me.

Never mind - branches and sub-branches are a mystery here, too - while I
understand what they're intended to do, I tip my hat to them and say -
"No thanks!"

The internet is full of people wanting to 'improve' things.

M$ - well, Bill Gates - said something to the effect that the internet
would never come to much, and wasn't a good financial proposition.

He suddenly woke up to the fact that he was being left behind, and tried
to catch up, buying-up smaller companies and their software.

Then he launched IE, OE and Outlook, the first two of which (and
probably the third, but of which I have no experience), both (or all?)
ignored existing and established internet protocols so that as M$ had
the most operating system users with DOS and Windows and could at least
make a good fist at derailing opposition by a) incorporating IE and OE
into Windows so cutting off the lifeblood of competitors like Netscape,
and b) witholding their codes so that other software-writers would find
it difficult to make programs play nicely with Windows.

There are lots of other issues, but I don't want to write a book - today.

However, M$ made such a pig's ear of IE and OE that despite it being
'free' software bundled in with Windows, there was still room for
Netscape, and later, a lot of other browsers like Opera, Firefox, etc,
as well as independent news and mailreaders.

Fortunately, the US 'Establishment' became alarmed about these tactics
and instituted 'anti-trust' actions, which, despite struggling and
wriggling, M$ lost. The EU has piled in with legislation of its own, and
the playing-field is levelling off.

A bit.

But even now, IE isn't properly compliant.

What Gardenbanter did smacked rather of M$ tactics to a lot of people,
but I think it's unfair to blame the users too much, as ISPs are
contributing to the decline of everything except the WWW - it's so much
easier for them just to provide the connection and charge for it, rather
than provide access to all the other nooks and crannies, bells and
whistles which are available.

Some ISPs do still maintain their own news servers, but usually, you
have to pay for your account with them.

People have been using newsgroups for - I don't know (exactly) - twenty
years? You can't blame old hands for resenting companies etc who have
contributed little or nothing to the success of usenet and the internet
in general from shouldering their way to the fullest troughs.

There!

Rant over!

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

The message
from chris French contains these words:

A?

You were complaining about messed up threading as a result of replying
on threading by subject header. I was suggesting there are better ways.

No I wasn't! Quite the reverse!


Treading on the references header works much better overall IMO

Depends: there's one newsreader - may be one with a glitch, and not in
this group anyway, which spreads threads around like a ^h^h^h^h^ all
over the place, adding a space to the subject line to make a new
sub-thread.

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

The message
from chris French contains these words:

/Wackford Squeers/

Different strokes :-)

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

In message , Martin
writes
On Sat, 29 Nov 2008 22:45:45 +0000, chris French
wrote:
Treading on the references header works much better overall IMO

Threading using the reference header is specified in the rfc. Probably why the
reference header is there.

I suspect so, but wasn't sure and CNBA to look it up
--
Chris French

In message ,
Rusty_Hinge writes

The internet is full of people wanting to 'improve' things.


Jolly good too, overall I'd say the Internet is a more useful and
interesting place than it was 10 years ago.



Then he launched IE, OE and Outlook, the first two of which (and
probably the third, but of which I have no experience), both (or all?)
ignored existing and established internet protocols

I don't think they ignored them, otherwise Ie wouldn't have opened web
pages and OE wouldn't send mail, but they did add non-standard things
which complicated matters, however, so did Netscape.

so that as M$ had
the most operating system users with DOS and Windows and could at least
make a good fist at derailing opposition by a) incorporating IE and OE
into Windows so cutting off the lifeblood of competitors like Netscape,
and b) witholding their codes so that other software-writers would find
it difficult to make programs play nicely with Windows.


And if it had been another company, they'd have done the same sort of
thing. Look what happened when some companies tried to sell alternative
hardware running Apple Os-es.


But even now, IE isn't properly compliant.

IE7 was pretty good, IE8 even more so. Ironically the problem MS are
having with IE8 relate to web pages providing pages tweaked for the
older versions, they are having to put code into IE8 to deal with them.

What Gardenbanter did smacked rather of M$ tactics to a lot of people,
but I think it's unfair to blame the users too much, as ISPs are
contributing to the decline of everything except the WWW - it's so much
easier for them just to provide the connection and charge for it, rather
than provide access to all the other nooks and crannies, bells and
whistles which are available.

The market is very price sensitive, things like news servers are
probably very little used overall, so they get trimmed to save a little.
Which seems fair enough from a business POV. I don't think the
availability of servers is an issue really, most people just don't know
about or understand about newsgroups (mostly by word of mouth, or an
accident like using GB I guess nowadays). People who want to use them
will either choose an ISP who provides the service or make other
arrangements

Some ISPs do still maintain their own news servers, but usually, you
have to pay for your account with them.

I think all the ISP's I've used have provided free news servers, but not
always good enough to bother using

People have been using newsgroups for - I don't know (exactly) - twenty
years?

Coming on for 30.

Rant over!

Feel better I hope :-)
--
Chris French

In message ,
Rusty_Hinge writes
The message
from chris French contains these words:

A?

You were complaining about messed up threading as a result of replying
on threading by subject header. I was suggesting there are better ways.

No I wasn't! Quite the reverse!

Well, that was what it sounded like to me :-)


Treading on the references header works much better overall IMO

Depends: there's one newsreader - may be one with a glitch, and not in
this group anyway, which spreads threads around like a ^h^h^h^h^ all
over the place, adding a space to the subject line to make a new
sub-thread.

Yeah, but my point was really that by threading on the References header
changes in the subject don't matter.
--
Chris French

On Fri, 28 Nov 2008 22:36:03 +0000, Gopher wrote:

That's it - I'm off!

I joined this group a few months ago, lurking and mainly enjoying and
appreciating the advice and comments made on gardening. However I have
noticed that it appears to have become the preserve of a clique of
individuals who treat it as their private debating chamber. Like a bunch
of smug, bickering, spoiled children, obviously educated and with
exceedingly high opinions of their individual cerebral worth, they stamp
their feet and shout, insult and sulk.

If you think this group is bad for that, you should take a look at
uk.food+drink.misc!

95% of people who post there fit that description and are real scum.

The women (bitches) who post there trying to get one up on another woman
(bitch) are the worst.

The message
from chris French contains these words:
In message ,
Rusty_Hinge writes

The internet is full of people wanting to 'improve' things.


Jolly good too, overall I'd say the Internet is a more useful and
interesting place than it was 10 years ago.

That's not in dispute (here) - it the droves of unilateralists that
cause the problems.

Then he launched IE, OE and Outlook, the first two of which (and
probably the third, but of which I have no experience), both (or all?)
ignored existing and established internet protocols

I don't think they ignored them, otherwise Ie wouldn't have opened web
pages and OE wouldn't send mail, but they did add non-standard things
which complicated matters, however, so did Netscape.

They certainly did - OE introducing colour and HTML into news and
mailreaders - totally contrary to AUP - and is still.

The fact that they opened and read things (still not properly, as on
mouseover IE displays 'alt' text as titles, not as the descriptive text
as intended for users with a sight problem.) is neither here nor there -
the extra bells and whistles were introduced to make it difficult for
the users of compliant software to access properly.

so that as M$ had
the most operating system users with DOS and Windows and could at least
make a good fist at derailing opposition by a) incorporating IE and OE
into Windows so cutting off the lifeblood of competitors like Netscape,
and b) witholding their codes so that other software-writers would find
it difficult to make programs play nicely with Windows.


And if it had been another company, they'd have done the same sort of
thing. Look what happened when some companies tried to sell alternative
hardware running Apple Os-es.

No idea. A plague on all their houses.

But even now, IE isn't properly compliant.

IE7 was pretty good, IE8 even more so. Ironically the problem MS are
having with IE8 relate to web pages providing pages tweaked for the
older versions, they are having to put code into IE8 to deal with them.

Firefox and Opera seem to cope.

Try this:

'Construct' a HTML page using Frontpage.

Write the same thing using Word and convert it to HTML using the toolbar
option to do so.

Write one to do exactly the same thing using Notepad or similar.

Compare sizes of file. Frontpage - Vast; Word - Huge; Notepad - miniscule.

Now submit all three to test on www.w3c.com

Now, just WHAT is all that extra crap doing? It doesn't benefit you or
the look of your web page. Think about it...

What Gardenbanter did smacked rather of M$ tactics to a lot of people,
but I think it's unfair to blame the users too much, as ISPs are
contributing to the decline of everything except the WWW - it's so much
easier for them just to provide the connection and charge for it, rather
than provide access to all the other nooks and crannies, bells and
whistles which are available.

The market is very price sensitive, things like news servers are
probably very little used overall, so they get trimmed to save a little.
Which seems fair enough from a business POV. I don't think the
availability of servers is an issue really, most people just don't know
about or understand about newsgroups (mostly by word of mouth, or an
accident like using GB I guess nowadays). People who want to use them
will either choose an ISP who provides the service or make other
arrangements

Trouble is, years ago all - or nearly all - ISPs laid out the
possibilities when you signed-up. Very few do now, and if you give
someone a newsgroup address, likely as not they'll tap it into their
browser.

Some ISPs do still maintain their own news servers, but usually, you
have to pay for your account with them.

I think all the ISP's I've used have provided free news servers, but not
always good enough to bother using

Zetnet's news server is excellent, and if you want a group that's not
included to be included, you only have to ask. I've done that with
several groups, and they've been added within the day. One of them was
added before my next connection.

People have been using newsgroups for - I don't know (exactly) - twenty
years?

Coming on for 30.

S'pose it must be - fx="creak"I keep forgetting how old I am./fx

Rant over!

Feel better I hope :-)

FTTB...

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig