ian.birchall posted:
Notice the careful editing of your quote to pick up the relevant bit for this posting, I would not want to be called a windbag.
You are a windbag.
My big grouse against DaveO is the way he quotes complete postings and then only answers the bit he wants, this leaves enormously long postings many a time which could easily be edited down to the point he wishes to make.
What annoys me the most is people who make sweeping generalisations!
Well, no that isn't true. The one line posts like "I agree" are annoying because you have not got a clue with who they are agreeing with.
When quoting I am mindful that if you quote mere snippets of a persons posts you will before long be accused of taking the statement out of context.
This comes from years on Usenet where quoting is considered polite and misquoting by being too selective the opposite.
If someone makes several points in a long post, as ChrisA is known to do for example, you can quote in one of two ways. Either break it up and discuss each point as it is made. Doing that annoys some people but is IMO the clearest way to make your points. See above.
Or you can quote the entire thing and then discuss each point made.
The other alternative is to not quote at all but to to that means if you want people to understand what you are on about you end up paraphrasing the post anyway which defeats the object.
For example had I not quoted you I would have to have written something like "You said you would not like to ba labelled a windbag but you are" which takes up more space and invloves more typing.
So basically I intend to carry on as usual and if that marks me down as a "windbag" in your eyes so be it. I guess I will just have to live with the label!
I shall however be keeping a close eye on your quoting technique and the length of your posts for any windbag like tendancies!
Dave
