Long before blogs, long before the Web even, there was an Internet and people communicated via public forums (fora?), Usenet foremost among them.
Yet I stopped using Usenet about a decade ago. Here is a good example as to why. Excerpts from an exchange:
“You will have more success on Usenet if you learn and follow the normal Usenet posting conventions.“
“About posting conventions: where did I stray from them? I do indeed want to respect the list rules.“
“Have a look at <http://cfaj.freeshell.org/google/>“
“Got it: thanks.“
“You failed to appropriately quote the message that you are responding to. See the FAQ and the more detailed explanation of posting style that it links to. Then, if the explanation provided is not sufficiently clear, ask for clarification.“
“I am afraid that you have not yet ‘got it’. You have gone from not quoting the message you are responding to, to top-posting and failing to appropriately trim the material that you are quoting.“
“If you had been told what you did wrong, that would, hopefully, eliminate one class of error from your future posts. You were told where to read about conventions, which *should* eliminate *all* of the well-known errors.“
You are forgiven if you thought that the thread from which I excerpted these snotty remarks was about Usenet’s “netiquette”. But it wasn’t. It was all in response to a very polite and sensible question about ways to implement a destructor in JavaScript.
I guess my views are rather clear on the question as to which people harm Usenet more: those who stray from flawless “netiquette”, or those who feel obliged to lecture them. I have yet to understand why it is proper “netiquette” to flood a topic with such lectures instead of limiting responses to the topic at hand, and responding only when one actually knows the answer. I guess that would be too helpful, and helping other people without scolding them is not proper “netiquette”?