Please desist from embedding Ctrl-L's

[Patrick M Juola]

In article <7...@brl-smoke.ARPA> wma...@brl-smoke.ARPA (Will Martin ) writes:
>I have noticed a distressing trend lately -- some posters embed
>numerous CTRL-L characters in their postings.
>
>The only reason to include Ctrl-L's in a posting is to paginate a long
>document into actual printed-output pages,... [remainder edited]
>
>(Perhaps a line could be added to network-etiquette documentation
>disparaging such practices?)
>
>Will

I disagree. Where I have seen ^L used most frequently is in net.jokes and
net.puzzle. In net.puzzle, they work wonders for separating the question
from the answer (much easier than trying to rot-13 only PART of a file).
In net.jokes, it either separates the joke from the punch line :

"So the lady responds :
^L
<whatever>"

or it gives the people a chance not to read the joke if they would be
offended by it. I think this is a good idea for several reasons, among
them : it's easy to put in a ^L, and not everyone knows how/is able to
unrotate statements.

Well, that's my $.02 -- Pat Juola
Hopkins Maths

[Henry C. Mensch]

In article <29...@jhunix.UUCP> ins_...@jhunix.ARPA (Patrick M Juola) writes:
>I disagree. . . . . . . In net.puzzle, they work wonders for separating
>the question from the answer . . . . .

>In net.jokes, it either separates the joke from the punch line :
>

You assume that everyone is using the same news software and
the same terminals as you are. I used to have a terminal that would
have epileptic seizures when it received a ^L. Some news software
doesn't deal with ^L's very well (old versions of vnews, for example).
The bottom line is that ^L doesn't work the same everywhere, so please
don't use it. The rest of us will be grateful.

--
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Henry Mensch | Technical Writer | MIT/Project Athena
he...@athena.mit.edu ..!mit-eddie!mit-athena!henry

[MKR]

In article <29...@jhunix.UUCP> ins_...@jhunix.ARPA (Patrick M Juola) writes:

>In article <7...@brl-smoke.ARPA> wma...@brl-smoke.ARPA (Will Martin ) writes:
>>I have noticed a distressing trend lately -- some posters embed
>>numerous CTRL-L characters in their postings.
>>

>>Will
>
>I disagree. Where I have seen ^L used most frequently is in net.jokes and
>net.puzzle. In net.puzzle, they work wonders for separating the question

>Well, that's my $.02 -- Pat Juola

Well, I agree

with Will that

Control-L's are obnoxious

But on the other hand, I

agree with Pat that

They are useful in

net.jokes and net.puzzle.

Let's compromise:

Use them in net.jokes and net.puzzle, where

they are appropriate, but

keep them out of other groups.

Otherwise, I'll have to take

the responsibility upon

myself and edit my shell variables to

ignore the buggers.


--MKR