Re: [Pan-users] Re: Feature Request: configurable quoting character

[Torstein Sunde]

Toby A Inkster wrote:
> But they are not non-standard. Indeed, no recognised standards body
> has ever set a standard for quoting. ":" has been used by tin as the
> default quote character for $DEITY knows how long. "|" is also a
> commonly used quote character.

"Son-of-RFC1036" states that quoting 'SHOULD be done by prefacing each
quoted line ([...]) with the character ">"'.  I know this isn't a
formally recognized standard, but to my knowledge, it's widely accepted.

I searched the most recent articles on news.software.readers for "tin",
and the followups I found (most of them posted with tin) were using ">".

I tested how your quoting alternatives looked on Pan (0.13.3.93),
Sylpheed-claws (0.8.3) and Sylpheed (0.8.3).  Pan recognised ":" and
"|" but not "TAI>".  The two others recognised "TAI>" but not ":" or
"|".  Claws can be set to also recognise other characters, "plain"
Sylpheed can't.  Only ">" was recognised (coloured) by all.

I also fail to see what sending alternate quoting characters should be
*useful* for, unless there are groups that "require" it.

> Quoting with initials is considered standard practice on Fidonet.
> Further, proper (non-nested) consistant quoting with initials uses
> O(1) space, whereas quoting with ">" uses O(n) space, for n levels of
> nested quotes. They also prevent misattributions.

But (except for Fidonet?), initials *won't* be used consistently,
using more space and causing a big mess.  Sometimes it can also be
difficult to see who responded to whom, especially when some bastard
top-posts. 

Misattributions may happen, as different people may have the same
initials, especially on groups where one-word aliases (e.g. "Dave",
"David", "devilkin") are common.

If certain groups or hierarchies use alternate quoting consistently, it
could make sense to allow it for these groups *only* (i.e. a per-group
setting), but not as a *general* option.

-- 
"Failure is not an option. It's bundled with your software."