[computer-go] Off-topic: U.S cooking, and Mailing List Ettiquette

[Richard Brown <rbrown@xxxxxxxx>]

chrilly wrote:

> Contains also "real" recibes for the one who are interested in cooking.
> Personally I like cooking, but I have problems to grasp the US-cooking
> vocabulary and especially the cooking metrics like cup
It may help to note that cooks in the U.S. never _weigh_ anything.
In fact, most U.S. kitchens do not contains scales or balances.

Thus, recipes call for a "cup" or some other measurement by _volume_
(as opposed to _weight_, as in much of the rest of the civilized world).

The reason for this, I have been told, is that kitchen scales were
scarce in the new world in the 18th century, few or none being made
here, and imports being unable to survive the shipping.  It sounds
entirely plausible -- therefore it's more likely a made-up, apocryphal
explanation.  My guess is that there were no standards at all prior to
about 1750 or so, and European cookbooks evolved in one way; U.S. in
another.

My true purpose in writing this, is to ask all of you to please snip
out the pieces of a message to which you are _not_ replying -- as I
have done above.  Please edit the message to which are responding to
include _only_ the items to which you _are_ responding.

To do otherwise implies not only that you think we must be somehow
more interested in what _you_ have to say that in what others have
said, but also that -- in spite of your eagerness to respond -- you
are too lazy to do any editing for the benefit of your readers.

This demonstrates that you have absolutely no respect for them (us),
forcing them (us) to slog through the entirety of the message to which
you are responding -- again and again, in longer exchanges -- if they
(we) want to understand your response.

When several people do this, in response to each other, the message
size grows to an inordinate length.  In my mail-reading program, I
like to hit the space bar to page through a message, to get to the
next one.  To be forced by you into doing that is of course annoying
in its own right:  _You_ should expend the effort, not me!  Edit, dammit!

Even more annoying to me that the inequitable distribution of effort,
is this:  When I see "top-posting" (response at the top; entire text
of previous message -- often including _all_ the previous messages --
quoted below these "brilliant" remarks), it's very clear to me that
the responder lacks respect for his readership, and places the value
of his own opinions above the value of everyone else's.

Now, you may be right.  You may be the best computer programmer in
the world, and maybe your opinions _are_ better than everyone else's.

But no matter how good a _programmer_ you think you are, it's just
plain rude:  You are being a bad _citizen_ and if you keep doing it,
your messages are going straight into my "Trash" folder.  Unread.

Let this be a word to the wise:  You _will_ lose readers if you
keep behaving in this way.

No matter _how_ smart you have convinced yourself that your are.

Sincerely,

Rich
--
Richard L. Brown             Office of Information Services
Senior Unix Sysadmin         University of Wisconsin System
                            780 Regent St., Rm. 246
rbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx              Madison, WI  53715

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