Copyright © 1990-2010 by Prof. Timo Salmi
Last modified Sat 13-Mar-2010 08:55:22
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Copyright © 1990-2010 by Prof. Timo Salmi Last modified Sat 13-Mar-2010 08:55:22 |
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Besides the actual content, of course, proper formatting of your
Usenet news postings (the same goes for your email) can
significantly enhance the effectiveness and credibility of your
postings. Let's consider the issue of suitable right margins for
your text.
The right margin (if you pardon the pun): Many users reading
the news still have an around 80 column terminal program or are
using WWW browser settings at a corresponding width. Consider the
implications for your writing. If you use too broad lines, the tails
of the lines will be wrapped over to the next line (or be truncated
depending on the reader's terminal program settings) making your
text difficult or impossible to follow. Your chances of getting good
follow-ups or useful answers to the questions, which you may have
asked, are radically diminished.
But it does not end there. If someone quotes your text with the usual news
convention of preceding your text with ">" an overflow can follow
even if your text does not originally exceed the 80 column limit. In
fact there can be multiple quotes. Hence a suitable maximum right
margin wrap in writing to the news is around
72 columns. Note that this problem concerns your
signature width as well. Even if quoting signatures is not a good
idea, it is often done. Furthermore, when a discussion expands,
there could be multi-level quoting (which should not be
exaggerated). Your original text, if included, will be gradually
shifting to the right.
Personally, I have set my editor's wrap at column 69 for the Usenet
news when I write. The same goes for my email.
Another, related problem is that some editor and wordprocessor
programs do not truly wrap the text paragraphs by default at all.
That is, they omit the eoln (end of line) markers even if they seem
to change the line on your own screen. Technically, this situation
results in very long lines which are hard to handle at the reader's
end. Therefore, when you write, it is advisable to ensure that your editor factually is in the wrap mode before sending the
message.
A good further point from Dr. John Stockton: "Long lines are simply
harder to read. Books, magazines, and newspapers set most material
to have something like 70 characters per line, certainly not much
more (special cases excepted); it is what best suits the human eye."
I don't have the time for this. Why should
I bother about my margins and text formulations? Let the reader
acquire such a newsreader or email program that takes care of
the situation!A trivial case of self-interest. You probably write to the Usenet news (or send email) in order to be heard by the recipients. You get your message a bit better across if its technical formulation does not render it unintelligible for some or most of the readers. If you don't care what the others think, why do you write in the first place?
