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Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mit-eddie!necntc!ima!haddock!karl
From: karl@haddock.ISC.COM (Karl Heuer)
Newsgroups: news.software.b,news.admin,news.misc
Subject: Re: Messages with >80-character lines
Message-ID: <1453@haddock.ISC.COM>
Date: Wed, 21-Oct-87 17:12:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: haddock.1453
Posted: Wed Oct 21 17:12:27 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 24-Oct-87 08:00:29 EDT
References: <767@quacky.UUCP> <696@unisoft.UUCP> <37e7ff5a.b8ab@apollo.uucp>
Reply-To: karl@haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer)
Organization: Interactive Systems, Boston
Lines: 15
Summary: Paragraph separation is not universally accepted
Xref: mnetor news.software.b:896 news.admin:1217 news.misc:1054

In article <37e7ff5a.b8ab@apollo.uucp> rees@apollo.uucp (Jim Rees) writes:
>I don't see why we should have to change the format of the text as sent.
>It's easy to tell where lines and paragraphs end with the existing
>format.  Lines end in a single NL, paras end in a double NL.

I wish this were true.  Unfortunately, there are some folks out there who use
"\n[ \t][ \t]*" rather than "\n\n" as their paragraph separator.

Write a filter that recognizes both formats, you say?  Good idea, but now I
have to worry about the people who think that indentation is a good way to
highlight quoted text.  And their counterparts who believe that the quoted
text should be left as is, and the reply indented.  Intelligent intervention
is required at this point, and since AI doesn't exist, that means a human.

Karl W. Z. Heuer (ima!haddock!karl or karl@haddock.isc.com), The Walking Lint