"...as the sphere of folks I routinely exchange e-mail with has grown beyond software engineers and ops/sysadmin guys, I've been increasingly frustrated by how bad it is.
It's clear to me that not only to most people not "get" how e-mail quoting and threading work, they just don't care. Web-based mail services like Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, and GMail only serve to lower the bar further.
But some of this simply requires people to (1) care about their communication, and (2) take the time to do it well. Sadly, both of those seem to be rare."
Jeremy - get over it. Netiquette is dead and those of us that appreciate the value of the finer points that these mechanisms allow us are clearly a dying breed. Its too late and for most people, the need for change just isn't there.
But there is a bright side. There are a bunch of us that do realize the benefits that come with properly formatted communications and verbal, written, email or otherwise. Spending some time worrying about the presentation of your ideas is an easy way to make them stand out. Taking the time to make sure that your message is being received as transmitted is generally a pretty good guarantee that it will be. Or at the very least, the first step towards ensuring that some day, it might be.
I'm with you though - internet messaging was much more straightforward when the generally accepted rules were generally followed. It would have been nice if this pleasant little aspect of our little internet had been preserved as the network grew.
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