[Sean Johnson] sent this out to "his e-mail list" which I'm on. I personally decided to post it, on a "for what it's worth" basis.
To
exactly what words does "
this" refer? The only thing above it in your "Reply #2" is a quote from newbie "Clavis David" (June 08, 2017 at 13:33:35).
By the way, it's Sean's letter itself that questions the veracity of the rumors about Mr. Moran planning to ordain a Fr. Pfeiffer seminarian. [....] Are you questioning the veracity of Sean's letter itself? Are you questioning my veracity?
"
Veracity"? No. What I
do question is where the words of the CathInfo member grandly identified out in the left margin--someone named after the Evangelist Matthew--
begin & end--and where the words of the cited Sean Johnson
begin & end.
In this instance, "Semper Idem, Sean Johnson" being the last text before the footer and the
rule for the
sig, a reader can assume his words
end with that. Unless that had been followed by a "P.S.", which would've created additional confusion, about whether that abbreviation ends Johnson's words, and begins yet another person's words.
So readers of the original posting in this
topic would be confused only about where Johnson's words
begin. In particular, who mentioned an unidentified "larger Cathinfo post" in the 3rd paragraph of that posting?
Originally contained within a larger Cathinfo post:
Didn't Johnson depart Cathinfo quite conspicuously a few years ago? So I'd expect Matthew to be the only one aware of the "larger Cathinfo post", and to have written those introduction-style words. Which "larger Cathinfo post"? Sigh. The absence of a link to it could be yet another instance of Matthew's, ummm, common omission of links to the sources of words written by other people.
There is a fatal flaw in [Clavis David's] reasoning.
And also in
yours.
It's [....] a coffee-and-donuts hall where Catholics meet and discuss about anything that interests them.
But where people meet face-to-face, they can pass around a
paper copy of the "unverified"
reports, or even a tablet or
smart-phone whose
screen displays it, so the people you meet there can see exactly where those reports begin & end. But readers of a message-board don't have access to such info when one person's words are posted
without being delimited within a posting that plainly
displays someone else's name as the
originator of that posting.
In this instance, the greater flexibility of CathInfo's straightforward "
quote" & "
/quote" feature not only wasn't needed, but also had some disadvantages. But decades ago, one option for signifying the points of transition between authors in e-mail, and especially e-mail
digests, was using lines like this:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The
analogy to "detach here" parts of perforated business forms was considered
obvious. Such lines were easy to insert in messages, they required no special formatting, and even similar lines with less-than-perfect spacing were regarded as boundaries that conclusively separated different authors. I'm mystified that such an obvious solution has been effectively
unlearned even among Internet users so experienced as to be operating their own servers.
-----
Note: Words displayed in the form "
[blue text]" are straightforward clarifications by C.I. member AlligatorDicax.
Topic: Is Mr. Moran back? by Sean Johnson (Read 5834 times)