From: kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy)
Subject: Re: kebbie squeals like a stuck pig Was: Way too long
Organization: Who, me???
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 92 16:22:07 GMT

In article <H.1WuUYGCg_7Q@jonh.wimsey.bc.ca> jhenders@jonh.wimsey.bc.ca writes:
>In <1992Apr15.045321.7831@rotag.mi.org>, Kevin Darcy writes or may not
>have, it's up to the reader to decide:
>>
>>As far as faithful quoting, try reading a book on English writing style, or
>>legal citations sometime. Elisions should ALWAYS be indicated in some form
>>or another. To do less is to do potential violence to the author's original
>>meaning or intent.
>
>    Please point out the relevant guideline defining this to be 
>required  when posting on Usenet.  

You poor naive child. Nothing is "required" when posting to Usenet. This
whole discussion is about what is RECOMMENDED or PREFERRED. I assumed you
understood that.

>Do you plan to call for strict
>adherance to textbook English writing style and American legalese on
>an International forum where more and more participants use English 
>as a second language and are not bound by American law? 

Babble away.

>>Once again, with feeling... it doesn't make a *DAMN* bit of difference 
>>whether the attribution line was automatically generated or not, John Boy. 
>>Keegan presumably has the power to a) manually edit his attribution, to 
>>b) modify the program or script which generated the attribution line, to 
>>c) use another newsreading package, to d) use another posting host with better
>>software, or, e) if desperate, to not post at all, or f) some combination of 
>>the above. THE ULTIMATE RESPONSIBILITY FOR WHAT APPEARS IN KEEGAN'S ARTICLES 
>>IS KEEGAN HIMSELF. Period. End of sentence.
>
>    I'm sure even someone as obviously thick as you has noticed that 
>it is not exactly common practice to note every deletion on every edited 
>posting to Usenet. 

It is extremely common for elisions IN THE MIDDLE OF QUOTED SECTIONS to be
indicated in some fashion, such as "..." or "[...]" or "[deletions]", etc.

>Accusing someone of deliberately implying a verbatum
>quote, while following commonly used practices is ludicrous. I notice 
>the posting I am replying to here carries no such disclaimer, yet you
>included the line 
>" In article <H.LG0Rz6&DanA@jonh.wimsey.bc.ca> jhenders@jonh.wimsey.bc.ca
> writes:"  as well. Does this mean you claim to be quoting my entire 
>article?  You don't seem to have edited it, or implied in any way that
>you have omitted parts.                 ^^

You are being unclear here. By "it", do you mean the attribution line, or
the article itself? I'll assume you mean the attribution line, in which
case your comment is irrelevant. There is no need to edit an attribution
line to indicate the fact that elisions exist, PROVIDING that whatever
elisions are made are done honestly and forthrightly.

>    As usual, your arguments are based on standards you set for others, 
>but do not even follow yourself.

Since you chose this particular article as a test case, let's indulge in 
a little analysis, shall we?

For reference, your original article had three paragraphs:

Paragraph #1

	The lead-in was "No, I don't concur.". I quoted this paragraph
	in its entirety, and responded to it.

Paragraph #2 

	The lead-in was "The closest I can come". I did not quote or
	respond to this paragraph at all.

Paragraph #3. 

	The entire paragraph was 

		So you knew that the attribution line was automatically 
		generated, yet you accused Keegan of implying that his article 
		was verbatum because he had an automaticaly generated line in 
		it. Interesting, and not a strong point in your favour at all. 

	I quoted this paragraph, except for the last sentence, and responded
	to it.

Now, have I quoted faithfully here? Certainly. Let us bifurcate the analysis
into two parts to show how and why:

COMPONENT ANALYSIS (paragraph, sentence, word)

There is surely no-one who will insist that EVERY LAST WORD of an article be 
quoted. In the case of Paragraph #2, for instance, since I had no intention of 
responding to the paragraph, what purpose would it have served to quote the 
original? It is certainly acceptable to pick and choose which paragraphs one 
responds to. That is a priveleged editorial choice. But nota bene: in 
declining to respond to paragraph #2, I did *NOT* imply at any point that it 
never existed, only that I chose not to repond. The sequence was:

	Paragraph #1 fully quoted
	Response
	First sentence of Paragraph #3 quoted
	Response 

That sequence leaves open the possibility of an unresponded paragraph between
the quoted sections, which is okay and commonplace.

If I had done the following, things would have been far more questionable:

	Paragraph #1 & Paragraph #3 both quoted without any indication of
	the elision of Paragraph #2.
	Response.

This sequence would have implied that Paragraph #2 never existed, which is
a false representation. Note that this latter sequence is the kind of
fraud Keegan attempted to perpetrate on my article.

Am I guilty of misrepresentation in not quoting the last sentence of 
Paragraph #3? No, and for essentially the same reason that I'm not guilty 
of misrepresentation in not quoting Paragraph #2 - there is no need to
quote EVERY SENTENCE of a paragraph. People split up paragraphs into sentences 
all the time, and respond to the sentences separately. I, in effect, "split 
up" Paragraph #3 into two sentences, and chose to not to respond to the 
second part. Again, this is a priveleged editorial choice. However, I did not 
at any point imply that the second sentence never existed.

CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS

This is a much grayer area, but often as important or MORE important than 
component analysis. The basic questions to be asked here are

	A) Does the elision change meaning?

	B) If so, how much does the INDICATION of elision alleviate the
	   shift-of-meaning?

If, for example, you were to say "I am not an axe-murderer", then Component
Analysis alone would dictate that quoting this as "I am an axe-murderer" is 
dishonest. However, since the meaning of the quote is 180 degrees different
from the original, Contextual Analysis would not only label the quote
"I am an axe-murderer" dishonest, but ALSO the quote "I am [...] an 
axe-murderer", since both dishonest quotes imply the same false state-of-
affairs. The indication of elision doesn't salvage the quote.

As a further example, I once made the statement

	Judging by their ACTIONS, most t.a regulars approved of the threads.

Keegan butchered the quote in the following way:

	[...], most t.a regulars approved of the threads.

Obviously, this changed the meaning of the quote, and the fact that the
elipsis is shown is NOT sufficient to remedy the dishonest shift-of-meaning.

Another example. My article to Keegan consisted of the following paragraphs:

Paragraph #1. Lead-in was "Please identify".

Paragraph #2. Lead-in was "Come on, Jimmy, here's your chance". 

Paragraph #3. Lead-in was "Remember what you said:" (I lump the subsequent
quote from Keegan with this paragraph).

Paragraph #4. Lead-in "I'm asking".

Keegan omitted the first two of my paragraphs WITHOUT omitting the text to
which I was responding, therefore making it look like my entire article
consisted of Paragraphs #3 & #4. Does this change meaning? Why of course it
does! In Paragraph #1 I ask "Please identify", and in Paragraph #4 I say
"I'm asking". Paragraph #4 refers -specifically- to the contents of Paragraph
#1, and cannot be interpreted properly unless the contents of Paragraph #1 are
made available. So, you see, Keegan only altered the COMPONENTS of my article, 
he altered CONTEXT as well. Even if he had indicated elipsis, in other words,
this wouldn't have salvaged the quote from dishonesty, but at least it
wouldn't have been outright fraudulent.

Okay, now that we know what contextual violence IS, let's see if I committed
any in the test article.

	A) I declined to respond to Paragraph #2. Does this have any 
	   contextual "ripple effects"? Well, since Paragraph #2 was an
	   elaboration of Paragraph #1, and I had flatly contradicted
	   Paragraph #1, it logically follows that I also flatly disagreed
	   with Paragraph #2. No contextual surprises there.

	B) I declined to respond to the second sentence of Paragraph #3.
	   Any ripple effects? Certainly not. The first sentence of 
	   Paragraph #3 consisted of a recitation of fact; the second, an
	   _interpretation_ drawn from that fact. Certainly, the 
	   suppression of an interpretation does not change the fact
	   itself. There is no semantic ripple effect here.

CONCLUSION

It cannot be shown, either by examining context, or mere article components,
that I dishonestly quoted you from <H.LG0Rz6&DanA@jonh.wimsey.bc.ca>. In
contrast, I have shown multiple instances where Keegan has stooped to
dishonest quotes of my text. To be sure, there are no hard-and-fast "rules"
about article-quoting on Usenet, but there are de facto standards, and I
have presented my interpretations of some of those standards above. If you
wish to continue this discussion (and, quite frankly, I don't think you have
a leg to stand on), please do so in an organized fashion. Either

	A) Attempt to show that I have misinterpreted the de facto standards.
	   This may be accomplished via the use of statistics and/or 
	   counter-examples drawn from the body of posted articles.

		or

	B) Show, in specific instances, that Keegan is NOT guilty of the
	   fraud which I have alleged, or that I am consistently guilty of  
	   similar or worse fraud. Please document each claim.

The following strategies are NOT likely to accomplish anything positive, IMO:

	A) Spouting mindless truisms like "Usenet has no rules" or "They're
	   guidelines, not rules" or "Everyone has a different style"

	B) Making vague, unsupported allegations like "You do the same thing".

	C) Desperate appeals to popularity, e.g. "Everyone knows you're a 
	   liar".

Awaiting your response...

							- Kevin