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Old February 26th 12, 02:11 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
Steve Hayes[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,089
Default USENET Posting styles (was Making a copy of a DVD)

On Sat, 25 Feb 2012 12:33:45 -0500, "Robert Sudbury" noEMAILforYOU wrote:

Despite your apparent lack of conversation skills, I still scrolled through
to the bottom of your reply to read your one-line insult.

I respect your choice to bottom post, but I suggest you try to articulate
yourself in a less demeaning manner.

As for your argument pro or con, I see none.

"Erik Vastmasd" wrote in message
...
I caught a glimpse of "Robert Sudbury" noEMAILforYOU on Sat, 25 Feb
2012 01:02:48 -0500, writing in alt.windows7.general:

To compare a posting style to the unsafe operation of a motor vehicle is
ludicrious. The implied consequences are incomparable. Using a posting
style of one's choice doesn't place your health or life at risk.

Back in the days I used to reply mid-post, or in-line. This made it look
more like a live conversation. It was an editing nightmare and if it
wasn't
formatted properly or your recipient's reader sucked, the reader often
missed information. If the conversation required more than a single reply
from each person involved however... icky acky ooo, what a mess, and I
loved
it. Thought it was the cat's meow.

As flame wars ebbed and flowed, I decided to give bottom posting a swing.
Sure it's great to have a complete conversation, chronologically sorted
top
to bottom, but if the conversation was long, or the reply just as long, or
the topic too complex to edit down to a smaller quoted chunk, it could be
just as annoying to scroll through the entire message, and hope you find
the
start of the reply without having to scroll back. Then what happened if
you
edited out a chunk that was later deemed important?

This lasted about a week. I hated bottom posting ... then I switched to
top posting.

Top posting is where I'm at, and will stay at. Chances are, when you
opened
this letter, you recognized that the reply was `right here' ... three
seconds and you found your goal. Life is good. 8)

As for all those lovely arguments against Top-Posting that quote ancient
RFCs or netiquette. The internet and usenet were created by ... you
guessed
it, Engineers. When left to their own devices, Engineers tend to design
things for reasons other than business and personal 'use'. Engineers like
big thick manuals. Bottom posting is like a big thick manual. A b c d e f
g
h... neat, orderly. When you're an Engineer or a Scientist, you need to
know a b c d e in the order of a b c d e. That works... sure, but what
happens when you're a consumer, a user, a business? Do you care?

Long are gone the days when the usenet was used solely by academia.
Top-posting is immediate. Top posting is personal. Top-posting is for
the
masses.

Blogs = top post
Twitter logs = top post
News sites = top post
When was the last time you visited an information site that listed oldest
conversations first? A forum site probably ... but what else? Anything?
The point being, top posting offers you the shortest route, through the
least amount of effort, to the latest topics or information.

I will try to sum up my opinions for the reason for top posting in few
useful, daily life arguments.

1. Same concept goes for good paper filing systems. You file new to the
front ... where's the front of an email? top.

2. If you're vision-impaired, using a large font reader or you're
listening
to your news reader, following a conversation thread, that is say, 20
replies deep, how fast will you dump that thread, important or otherwise
if
you must wade through all that replied, quoted text, over and over,
message
after message to reach the simple responses all the way down at the
bottom?

3. If you're reading a `Thread' you probably already read it from the OP.
That's the purpose of the Thread title ... which BTW is at the top of the
thread message ... 8) As one reads through a thread, how much more time
is
wasted scrolling or paging down through quoted text just to reach a reply
several paragraphs long that you then must scroll page-up through to find
the actual beginning of the reply? Or worse, to an AOL'esque single line
or
monosyllabic response?

3. In this age of not just immediate gratification, but of the immediacy
of
information, anything but top posting, wastes time. We all know what time
is ... money. My time is valuable, your time is valuable. Learn to
structure your thoughts quickly. Put it to print. Get it out there and
move on.

4. How many of your parents, or grandparents still can't grasp the concept
of scrolling down or how to pull the scroll bar down to see the other 50
lines of your message beyond the mere 15 they can see after blowing their
screen res up to 800x600?

You may have heard "The medium is the message. ... The content is the
audience". For USENET, the medium is instantaneous, and so too should be
the message... this is the very essence of Top-posting.

Having said all this, in the end, posting style is all about personal
choice. It's up to the author to decide what is the best method for
getting
their message across. No one can say it's right or wrong, just of
differing
opinion, or merits.

Unlike a private company, on USENET there is no policy, and no one & no
way
to enforce it (unless it's a moderated ng of course). It's a public forum
for all dogs on the internet to have their chance to be praised, flamed or
ignored, regardless.

If you want popularity, go to Facebook or look in a mirror. USENET is not
a
private conversation, it's a publc dissemination of information,
discussions
and the occasional obligatory flame-war.

"Stan Brown" wrote in message
.net...
On Thu, 23 Feb 2012 22:29:10 -0500, "Robert Sudbury" wrote:

Top-posting, in-line posting or bottom-posting is entirely up to the
individual.

Nonsense. You might as well say which side of the road to drive on
is a personal decision.

Sure, you *can* decide to do it differently from others, but it will
make a big mess if you do, and it will also make you unpopular.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Shikata ga nai...

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Dick Head.

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You quoted all that just to say.... nothing.


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
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