Top or Bottom
Skam
yet the ones that bottom post seem always to have a bee in there bonnet and
enjoy flaming those that top post..Yet top posters dont seem to mind either
way!!
As my news prog always starts a new message at the top thats where I do
it...is that wrong?
--
Skam
Wayne Brown
> Can some one please tell me why some top post and others bottom post.
Bottom posting is preferred because it keeps the chronological flow of the
messages correct. Most people read from top-to-bottom, but top posting
requires you to skip backwards through an article to get to the most
recent part. Bottom posting also makes it possible to intersperse new
comments among the quoted material to which it refers, as I'm doing here.
> yet the ones that bottom post seem always to have a bee in there bonnet and
> enjoy flaming those that top post..Yet top posters dont seem to mind either
> way!!
Bottom posting has been the accepted practice on Usenet for many years.
A lot of us first came here at a time when it was expected that newbies
hang around silently long enough to learn the rules before they started
posting. Top posting is often seen as the mark of a newbie who wants
to jump in and start talking before taking the time to learn what's
acceptable to the rest of the group. It's a little like someone who
attends a committee meeting for the first time and doesn't understand
why the other members insist on following Robert's Rules of Order
while conducting the meeting. "What's with all the silly rules about
old business and new business, and first and second motions, and being
recognized by the Chair? If I have something to say, why can't I just
say it?"
It doesn't help that different newsgroups have different traditions,
and mailing lists and Web message boards also have different practices.
That's why its always best to lurk in a group for a while and see what's
expected of participants there before posting.
> As my news prog always starts a new message at the top thats where I do
> it...is that wrong?
As I said above, it depends on the group, but in most cases, you'll be
better off to bottom post. News programs usually have default
behaviors that can be changed, and even if yours can't, you can still
move your cursor to the bottom yourself if necessary.
--
Wayne Brown | "When your tail's in a crack, you improvise
fwb...@bellsouth.net | if you're good enough. Otherwise you give
| your pelt to the trapper."
"e^(i*pi) = -1" -- Euler | -- John Myers Myers, "Silverlock"
Guido Ostkamp
> yet the ones that bottom post seem always to have a bee in there bonnet and
> enjoy flaming those that top post..Yet top posters dont seem to mind either
> way!!
>
> As my news prog always starts a new message at the top thats where I do
> it...is that wrong?
It is, in my opinion.
The top posts are mainly from users which have never seen computer
software other than Microsoft stuff. The buggy Microsoft Outlook starts
top and so newbies are misguided to do it that way.
The main (inofficial) rules are easy:
1. Quote only, what is really necessary for understanding; that is
what you are referring to. Strip off everything else to save
bandwidth (every article is stored and transferred throughout the
world).
2. Place your remarks directly below the quotation (preferably after
adding a blank line). That means, you switch from quotation
to your remarks and back. Quote everything, than add your stuff
at the very bottom is just as wrong as placing your stuff on
top and then quoting everything.
3. Cut off your lines when reaching about 70 characters in a line.
4. Don't use rich-text or HTML messages.
5. Use a real name in the groups, whenever possible (is "Skam" the
real one?).
Regards,
Guido
Sam of California
"Wayne Brown" <fwb...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:n4iT8.3228$wj4.4...@e3500-atl2.usenetserver.com...
>
> Bottom posting is preferred because it keeps the chronological flow of the
> messages correct. Most people read from top-to-bottom, but top posting
> requires you to skip backwards through an article to get to the most
> recent part.
I am sorry, I do not understand. The "chronological flow" would be equally
consistent whether all replies were top-posted or bottom-posted. It is a
matter of consistency, not top or bottom, that matters, correct? Also, when
replies are interspersed as we are doing, it is difficult or impossible to
be chronologically consistent, correct?
I think that many people might not understand "top posting requires you to
skip backwards". You do explain later that some software starts at the
bottom of a mesage and some software starts at the top. I think though that
when you say "top posting requires you to skip backwards" it would help to
explain that that depends upon the software used. The people you want to
communicate that to are the ones less likely to understand what you mean.
> Bottom posting has been the accepted practice on Usenet for many years.
> A lot of us first came here at a time when it was expected that newbies
> hang around silently long enough to learn the rules before they started
> posting.expected of participants there before posting.
The problem is that old-timers have a tendency to blast people for
top-posting even when you can look at all posts in the newsgroup for more
than a month and it still is not obvious what the standard is.
If the best justification for something is that it has always been done that
way, then it is something worth discussing. Has there been a productive
discussion of this in which "that's the way it is done" is not an end of the
discussion?
Sam of California
news:slrnahrm8k.1pi...@bianca.dialin.t-online.de...
>
> The top posts are mainly from users which have never seen computer
> software other than Microsoft stuff.
There are thousands of us, probably millions.
Sam of California
inconsideration of the manner in which bottom-posters criticize others for
top-posting that is the main problem. They claim that bottom-posting is the
standard; if it is, then the standard should be enhanced to say something
about consideration.
The "news.groups.questions" newsgroup seems to not be used by regular
newsgroup users. On Thursday I posted a message with the subject "Posting
top or bottom" that did not get any useful responses. In my question I asked
where to go for a discussion of the subject; I did not ask for an answer to
the question of which is better or whatever. The answers I got are I think
good examples of the inconsideration of the bottom-posters. I think that if
the bottom-posters continue to be inconsiderate then there will be enough
interest in changing the "standard". Related to the inconsideration is the
absence of considerate people doing something about the inconsiderate ones.
The problem exists in more than one newsgroup I use and based on your
message it exists in many others too.
"Skam" <ha...@cyberdude.com> wrote in message
news:iqgT8.12190$YM1.90...@news-text.cableinet.net...
Sam of California
choose for herself regardlous of how wild she is. You also have the freedom
to choose your preferences, but most women would not accept something just
because it is the standard. Right?
"Mike Swanson" <mi...@examplenospam.com> wrote in message
news:s2prhu0f6p6jvobu0...@4ax.com...
> Depends on what she wants and how wild in bed she gets.
just me
"Sam of California" <sam...@socal.rr.com> wrote in message
news:y7mT8.38109$1D2.16...@twister.socal.rr.com...
>> If the best justification for something is that it has always been done
that
> way, then it is something worth discussing. Has there been a productive
> discussion of this in which "that's the way it is done" is not an end of
the
> discussion?
I have no idea, but do suggest that the best measure of why bottom posting
is preferable comes when one prints out. Since nearly everyone in the world
reads from top to bottom, not bottom to top in stair steps [message by
message], it becomes very difficult to follow a printed version where
individuals have chosen to top post. And, yes, people do print out messages
on UseNet as well as email. I have used printed email as legal proof of
events and agreements.
-Aula
Jay Denebeim
Skam <ha...@cyberdude.com> wrote:
>Can some one please tell me why some top post and others bottom post.
You're confused. There is no such thing as 'bottom posting'. There's
people who edit the text they're replying to so that the context is
preserved and people can tell what the person is talking about.
There's also lazy cretins who either don't give a shit about other
people or are too stupid to edit the posts they're replying to so that
people can actually understand what they're talking about.
The latter group mostly 'top post' nowadays, however they've always
been around, briefly anyway. And they've always been flamed to crisp
until they get a clue.
Jay
--
* Jay Denebeim Moderator rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated *
* newsgroup submission address: b5...@deepthot.org *
* moderator contact address: b5mod-...@deepthot.org *
* personal contact address: dene...@deepthot.org *
ba...@dmcom.net
>
> You're confused. There is no such thing as 'bottom posting'. There's
> people who edit the text they're replying to so that the context is
> preserved and people can tell what the person is talking about.
> There's also lazy cretins who either don't give a shit about other
> people or are too stupid to edit the posts they're replying to so that
> people can actually understand what they're talking about.
Well in some groups a full reply is posted at the bottom of a message,
no matter what part is being replied to *sighes* with no edit.
As for Edot O.E. 5 IIRC allows a user to see in a preview only the text
of the last poster and allowed to post a reply to that without knowing
how many other people are quoted in the post. Of course the default
setting is to place cruser at the top of the message.
>
> The latter group mostly 'top post' nowadays, however they've always
> been around, briefly anyway. And they've always been flamed to crisp
> until they get a clue.
You do not want to visit a.r.w where *sighes* I have been working on
an FAQ question of why do so many here top post. The people that
complain about top posting are the ones that get flamed out of the
group. *sighes*
>
> Jay
--
news:alt.pagan FAQ at http://www.dmcom.net/bard/altpag.txt
news:alt.religion.wicca FAQ at http://www.dmcom.net/bard/arwfaq2.txt
news:news.groups FAQ at http://www.dmcom.net/bard/ngfaq.txt
Sam of California
"Jay Denebeim" <dene...@deepthot.org> wrote in message
news:afk5vu$m5b$1...@dent.deepthot.org...
> In article <iqgT8.12190$YM1.90...@news-text.cableinet.net>,
>
> There's also lazy cretins who either don't give a shit about other
> people or are too stupid to edit the posts they're replying to so that
> people can actually understand what they're talking about.
Is this a standard method for explaining such things? If so then I sure
don't like the standard. The world will be a happier palce without it.
Thank you for this, however. I am confident that the best way to rid the
world of a standard that advoactes this type of thing is for it to continue
in this manner.
Sam of California
news:NGmT8.88731$0g1.1...@twister.tampabay.rr.com...
I disagree, I think, but I think it is excellent that you are expressing
your opinion and understanding in a reasonable and logical manner. It seems
that unfortunately the top-or-bottom controversy is more likely to get
negative responses.
Reading top to bottom would be more useful if the entire discussion was
included but something else that gets many complaints is untrimmed messages.
Russ Allbery
> Well in some groups a full reply is posted at the bottom of a message,
> no matter what part is being replied to *sighes* with no edit.
And this is even *more* annoying than top-posting.
The most important thing as far as I'm concerned is for the poster to trim
quoted material to just what's relevant and necessary to establish
context. As long as that is done, I don't really care that much how they
order things, although I think top-posting reads very awkwardly and takes
a bit longer to puzzle out under some circumstances becasue of the
bottom-up flow of previous conversation.
The main trouble with the top-posting default in many news readers is that
it seems to encourage people to leave the entire post to which they're
responding at the bottom of the message, meaning that a thread of any
reasonable size accumulates a staggering amount of detritus. I've seen
posts with one line of original content and 4,000 lines of quoted material
underneath it, which is long enough to actually cause very noticable
download and fontification lag.
Probably 50-70% of people who intermix quoted material and new material
trim material appropriately, compared to something like 10-20% of people
who top-post. That's why top-posters get a bad rap. (Numbers pulled
utterly out of thin air.)
--
Russ Allbery (r...@stanford.edu) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
Guido Ostkamp
> I am sorry, I do not understand. The "chronological flow" would be
> equally consistent whether all replies were top-posted or
> bottom-posted. It is a matter of consistency, not top or bottom, that
> matters, correct? Also, when replies are interspersed as we are doing,
> it is difficult or impossible to be chronologically consistent,
> correct?
With the standard (or bottom) posting style you can always decide who
has posted what part of the message, simply by checking the number of ">
" indendations at the beginning of the line and "xyz wrote ..." lines.
Chronology is top to bottom for each section.
What is meant here is that with top postings you cannot immediately see
what is being referred to. You read a paragraph, then have to go some
pages down and manually search to find the place being referred to, then
return to the top paragraph to read on where you stopped and so forth.
That's simply annoying. Therefore the simple rule is that the remarks or
answer belong at the bottom of what is being referred to.
> The problem is that old-timers have a tendency to blast people for
> top-posting even when you can look at all posts in the newsgroup for
> more than a month and it still is not obvious what the standard is.
Remember that you only see those wrong posts, because some intruders
refuse to learn and obey the rules, although sometimes being told what
they are doing wrong and why.
I could also say there is a tendency that those newbies come in and
immediately treat every remark on their behaviour as a personal insult
and then defiantly refuse to change their behaviour. On the other hand,
this shall be no excuse for rude attacks on them.
> If the best justification for something is that it has always been
> done that way, then it is something worth discussing. Has there been a
> productive discussion of this in which "that's the way it is done" is
> not an end of the discussion?
This standard has evolved for good reasons, some of which I have already
stated. I have seen no reasons for top postings, other than that this
method is automatically taken if using Microsoft Outlook Express and
people are simply unwilling to invest time to think about what they
quote.
If you use top posts, you can as well use no quotations at all. It's
nearly the same as going back in the message list and read the
predecessor of the message in the hierarchy of your newsreader.
I have seen messages with several hundred lines of totally unchanged
predecessor message quoted and 1 line on top saying "Me too" or
something like that. What a waste of storage space. And that is
transfered through millions of computers and stored in big archives
making archive search even more complicated.
Millions of people are paying their ISPs and telephone companies for
downloading this kind of nonsense.
Regards,
Guido
Sam of California
>
> With the standard (or bottom) posting style you can always decide who
> has posted what part of the message, simply by checking the number of ">
> " indendations at the beginning of the line and "xyz wrote ..." lines.
> Chronology is top to bottom for each section.
I think we need to define some terms. However they are called, there is
top-posted, bottom-posted and then there is an interspersed style. I have
not seen the "interspersed style" called bottom-posting.
Regardlous of whether the top-posted or bottom-posted style is used, the
number of lines prefixed with ">>" (or something like that) will be the
same. Whan a top-posted style is used consistently, the chronology is bottom
to top. Whan a bottom-posted style is used consistently, the chronology is
top to bottom.
> What is meant here is that with top postings you cannot immediately see
> what is being referred to. You read a paragraph, then have to go some
> pages down and manually search to find the place being referred to, then
> return to the top paragraph to read on where you stopped and so forth.
> That's simply annoying. Therefore the simple rule is that the remarks or
> answer belong at the bottom of what is being referred to.
You say "at the bottom of what is being referred to" and that indicates to
me that you are not talking about bottom-posting but instead an interspersed
style such as I am using here. In the case of bottom-posting versus
top-posting, the requirement to scroll is essentially the same.
> > The problem is that old-timers have a tendency to blast people for
> > top-posting even when you can look at all posts in the newsgroup for
> > more than a month and it still is not obvious what the standard is.
>
> Remember that you only see those wrong posts, because some intruders
> refuse to learn and obey the rules, although sometimes being told what
> they are doing wrong and why.
I don't understand what you mean by "wrong posts". Do you mean top-posted
posts or do you mean the inconsiderate critricisms of them? When I said
"old-timers have a tendency to blast people" I meant that when someone says
not to top-post, they are too strong in their criticism. If that is what you
are talking about also, then I would like to know what rules say not to be
so inconsiderate. I think that is an excellent rule. Unfortunately trying to
tell them what they are doing wrong and why does not make them considerate.
I think referring to the rule would help.
> I could also say there is a tendency that those newbies come in and
> immediately treat every remark on their behaviour as a personal insult
> and then defiantly refuse to change their behaviour. On the other hand,
> this shall be no excuse for rude attacks on them.
If the initial remark to them is unreasonably strong, then of course they
will become defiant. That is an important part of what I want to say, that
if the criticism is too strong it accomplishes nothing or it makes things
worse. The type of attack I am talking about is something that others have
spoken up about and it is not something I remember being directed at me
(until I posted a message about the problem). I am responding to a problem I
have seen in multiple newsgroups in which others are pounced upon for
top-posting. So in the situation I am talking about, it is the rude remark
that occurs before any possible defiance.
> If you use top posts, you can as well use no quotations at all. It's
> nearly the same as going back in the message list and read the
> predecessor of the message in the hierarchy of your newsreader.
What you say about top-posts applies equally to bottom-posts.
Jim Riley
>Can some one please tell me why some top post and others bottom post.
It might better be characterized as being interleaved. Strictly
bottom posting (placing all your response at the bottom of a message)
is probably as bad as top posting. It might not get flamed as much
since it nominally follows the interleaving style. In response to a
short message, bottom posting and interleaving are roughly equivalent.
I could have responded to your post at the bottom, but I have chosen
to interleave my responses to each of your three separate, although
related, points. In cases where someone quotes several 100 lines,
only to add one line of "Me Too!!" at the bottom it will be as flamed
as if the one line were added at the top.
First, let's consider why you chose to break your message into three
paragraphs. I suspect it was because you wanted to emphasize the
three points. By using paragraphs you enhanced the ability of those
reading your message to understand what you were saying.
Let's consider an analogy. Imagine that a couple of weeks ago that we
had a lengthy discussion where there was some issue that neither of us
knew the answer to. In anticipation of our meeting again, you replay
our previous discussion in your mind, and remember the unresolved
question. When we meet again, you start off the conversations with,
"27", the answer to question. I look confused, since I hadn't really
thought about the question since, and it was only a small part of our
previous discussion. Your blurting out "27" wouldn't really be the
equivalent of top posting, but would be more of AOL-style where you
respond without providing any context at all.
Now imagine that after you said "27" you continued, "remember that
discussion we had two weeks ago, when we ...", and you continue on
recounting the entire half-hour discussion ... eventually ... getting
to the question that you were answering. This is equivalent to top
posting. If you had started off relating the entire discussion, and
ended with "27", that would be equivalent to bottom posting.
But what if you had started, "Remember when we were wondering which
President William Howard Taft was? He was the 27th President." This
is more like the Usenet style of interleaving the parts of a post that
you are responding too, adding your answer or commentary. It is
roughly equivalent to adding a gloss to a text, or filling in the
blanks of an application or many other forms of written communication
where we wish to provide a simple and clear understanding what we are
responding too.
>yet the ones that bottom post seem always to have a bee in there bonnet and
>enjoy flaming those that top post..Yet top posters dont seem to mind either
>way!!
Perhaps it is shock on their part. I remember the first time I saw
Usenet-style quoting. It really confused me. The part being quoted
back was what I had written, yet I interpreted it as being written by
the other person. The difference was that this was in a forum where
the messages were mostly short, and all were available for reading.
If you needed context, it was simple to back up a message. You might
have read:
Message 1: Which President was William Howard Taft?
Message 2: 27
A short response is entirely appropriate for *that* environment.
Quoting would be no more appropriate than saying, "In response to to
your inquiry of 5 seconds ago as to my well being, as to how I am, I
would like to say that I am fine."
Usenet on the other hand is not always reliable, earlier messages
might get lost. They might be received out of order, the answer
before the question. Messages tend to be longer. They are created
using a wide variety of software.
If there are more than one message being quoted, a combination of top
postin, bottom posting, and interleaved posting will leave everything
out of order. But if everyone posts interleaved, the order of
responses will be maintained. it simply works for Usenet - the
alternatives don't.
That you don't mind top posting may be an indication of obliviousness,
rather than tolerance. Top posting may work fine if everyone has just
read the message that is being responded to. It may work OK in chatty
environments where you aren't so much trying to exchange information
as sharing a mood. A socially aware individual will recognize the
differences and respond in an appropriate way. Others may have to be
reminded.
>As my news prog always starts a new message at the top thats where I do
>it...is that wrong?
As does mine. This permits me to step down through the message that I
am responding to, adding my comments in response to your questions and
comments, snipping out those parts that I am not responding to.
Consider if I had top posted "As does mine". You might not know what
I was referring to. By responding immediately to your "my news prog
always starts ...", I can avoid writing "My news client starts a new
message at the top just like you said that yours did."
--
Jim Riley
Q Tip
>O.E. 5 [...] Of course the default
>setting is to place cruser at the top of the message.
So does Forte Agent, yet you _rarely_ see a top post from us.
--
Q Tip
Adam H. Kerman
In Pnews, the cursor is at the first line in the headers! If you top post in
Pnews, the result will not be a message that can be injected into News.
Whoops! I seem to have quoted your entire message.
Jay Denebeim
Russ Allbery <r...@stanford.edu> wrote:
>bard <ba...@dmcom.net> writes:
>
>> Well in some groups a full reply is posted at the bottom of a message,
>> no matter what part is being replied to *sighes* with no edit.
>
>And this is even *more* annoying than top-posting.
Yes, and it pre-dates top posting, and was never called 'bottom
posting'. It's also the *same* behavior as top posting, it's just
using a different program. The behavior is failing to edit your reply
for context and just including whatever your program gave you. It's
the same problem as so-called AOLusers exibited back when they were
the most prevelant.
>The main trouble with the top-posting default in many news readers is that
>it seems to encourage people to leave the entire post to which they're
>responding at the bottom of the message
I don't think that was their intent when they did that FWIW. They put
the cursor at the top of the post so that it was easy to just start
marking text to delete. (come to think of it trn, rn, and just about
every other news reader I've seen do the same thing)
>Probably 50-70% of people who intermix quoted material and new material
>trim material appropriately, compared to something like 10-20% of people
>who top-post.
That's a very generous number. I've *never* seen a top poster edit
for context.
Brian Mailman
> Let's consider an analogy. Imagine that a couple of weeks ago that we
> had a lengthy discussion where there was some issue that neither of us
> knew the answer to. In anticipation of our meeting again, you replay
> our previous discussion in your mind, and remember the unresolved
> question. When we meet again, you start off the conversations with,
> "27", the answer to question.
"42." The answer is always "42."
B/, not panicking
Russ Allbery
> Russ Allbery <r...@stanford.edu> wrote:
>> Probably 50-70% of people who intermix quoted material and new material
>> trim material appropriately, compared to something like 10-20% of
>> people who top-post.
> That's a very generous number. I've *never* seen a top poster edit
> for context.
It doesn't seem to happen as much on Usenet (although the fellow who
started this thread seems to do it fairly well when they top-post), but I
work with a fair number of people who top-post in mail but who at least
try to trim most of the time.
(It's not even a Windows thing; one of the people who top-posts most of
the time in mail is a long-time Unix admin who uses exmh.)
Victor Sack
> Can some one please tell me why some top post and others bottom post.
This really belongs on news.newusers.questions... Still, here is what I
once or twice posted on another newsgroup, but it applies to most any
one.
It is mostly newbies who are putting their new text on top. They only
do so because they overwhelmingly use the brain-dead Netscape and MS
newsreaders, which make this quoting style the default, which it doesn't
occur to newbies to change (and which is, in fact, impossible to change,
except manually, in the Windows version of MS Outlook Express). The
default is there because these programs' news and e-mail parts are
principally designed for use in corporate intranets (where the money
is), where leaving the audit trail (the whole of the discussion on a
given topic) is often required. Usenet is an afterthought. Until the
arrival of Netscape and MS, just about everyone replied below the quoted
text. They did so not because people like me ordered them so, but
because years of experience with Usenet made it clear that putting the
new text below the quote is the most effective way of responding. It is
interesting that even Microsoft's own posting guidelines call for
'bottom posting' (see <http://www.jsiinc.com/newsgroup_document.htm>...
scroll to the bottom of the page).
Posters should show a reasonable effort to trim the post they are
replying to and to include just enough material to establish context.
Articles are more readable if the quoted context is as brief as
possible.
Replying above the quote encourages people to repost the entire text
when they are replying to a single line.
It is very common not to know the context of a post. This is a large
newsgroup and there are a lot of threads, some of which run for days and
weeks. Usenet is not the centre of my existence and neither is it for a
lot of posters I know. I don't want to have to read posts from the
bottom upwards just to remind myself what it is all about.
When you are carrying on a private conversation, you know the person you
are talking to has read the previous stuff. In a newsgroup, you don't
know that people reading your message have read the rest of the thread -
your message might have arrived before the rest of the thread gets to
their newsserver.
Conversations naturally run <comment> <1st reply> <2nd reply>, not the
other way round. Often enough, it is necessary to include (parts of)
some or all the comments to establish context. The next poster might
wish to reply both to the last comment and to the previous ones.
Placing your comment on top will make a mess of the whole thing, unless
the poster is so considerate and motivated as to copy and paste your
comment where it belongs.
It is only logical to try to not to reply to the whole post, but to make
your comments below each point that you believe deserves some comment.
Many newsreaders make it possible to read through entire threads by
using nothing but the space bar. Hitting the space bar scrolls down the
message (if necessary) and then jumps to the next one. If one has to
check the quoted parts placed below the new stuff to make sense of it,
this feature ceases to be as useful, because one has to use cursor keys
(or whatever) or the mouse to get back to the new stuff.
The only case where putting your comments before the quote is not a bad
idea, is when you _must_, for some reason, include the entire text of
the prior post and where your reply must be all in one block. Can't
think of many such cases.
When a few people get sloppy in their quoting, new arrivals seem to take
this as the acceptable norm. For those who actually know how to post
(and, of course, not only to them), it can be annoying. However, no one
is trying to dictate style here. Some people will always defend their
right to use whatever posting style they see fit. That's fine with me.
I'm only pointing out some more or less obvious facts.
Victor
Guido Ostkamp
> top-posted, bottom-posted and then there is an interspersed style. I have
> not seen the "interspersed style" called bottom-posting.
Ok, you are right. I meant "interspersed style" when using the term
"bottom" (I thought of it as "at the bottom of a paragraph style").
Sorry for the confusion.
> In the case of bottom-posting versus top-posting, the requirement to
> scroll is essentially the same.
Yes. That's why I consider bottom-posting as bad as top-posting.
> I don't understand what you mean by "wrong posts". Do you mean
> top-posted posts or do you mean the inconsiderate critricisms of them?
I meant top-posted posts.
> When I said "old-timers have a tendency to blast people" I meant that
> when someone says not to top-post, they are too strong in their
> criticism.
In the newsgroups in my countries language they tend to refer to a
webpage, where good (interspersed style) quoting is explained and mostly
try it in a polite style. Also nearly all groups regularly post
beginner FAQs or provide webpages where all this is listed. Still, that
hasn't helped much.
Quoting is also not the only problem. We have special characters here
which are not displayed correctly, if the MIME-codings and charsets are
not correct. Unfortunately MS-Outlook Express doesn't set them.
Furthermore, lines and quoted lines are not resorted to stay below about
70 chars per line, which makes the posts very hard to read. And so on
...
There is also a webpage documenting what is needed to get OutlookExpress
configured correctly and some additional programs which can be used to
enforce correct Outlook behaviour. Still MS seems to refuse to correct
their stuff.
Another problem is the use of nicknames. Most old-timers don't like them
either, because "they are not going to talk to someone who hides his
head in a paper bag in real life", Or the problem of not using replyable
E-Mail addresses due to Spam. This not tolerated either, and people are
thrown out of password protected newsserver providers.
> If that is what you are talking about also, then I would like to know
> what rules say not to be so inconsiderate.
As far as I know, the Netiquette always had some reminders that you
should keep in mind that there is a human being as well on the other
side of the wire.
>> If you use top posts, you can as well use no quotations at all. It's
>> nearly the same as going back in the message list and read the
>> predecessor of the message in the hierarchy of your newsreader.
>
> What you say about top-posts applies equally to bottom-posts.
Yep.
Regards,
Guido
just me
"Brian Mailman" <bmai...@sfo.invalid> wrote in message
news:3D1EA265...@sfo.com...
He's right, you know. But what was that question again?
-Aula
Skam
discript subject could justify so much of a response.
Thanks all for your reply's, some how I think I know all there is to know
about top or bottom posting (vbg).
I think in future you will see either bottom posts or interleaved posts with
my real name attached.
Thanks again all.
Stuart
Jeffrey M. Vinocur
Skam <ha...@cyberdude.com> wrote:
>
>I think in future you will see either bottom posts or interleaved posts with
>my real name attached.
Well!
I don't think I've ever seen anyone raise that issue without
being far too stubborn to have any chance of understanding the
reasons. I'm impressed.
See you around.
--
Jeffrey M. Vinocur
je...@litech.org
Jay Denebeim
Jeffrey M. Vinocur <je...@litech.org> wrote:
>In article <YeET8.13471$3b7.10...@news-text.cableinet.net>,
>Skam <ha...@cyberdude.com> wrote:
>>
>>I think in future you will see either bottom posts or interleaved posts with
>>my real name attached.
>
>Well!
>
>I don't think I've ever seen anyone raise that issue without
>being far too stubborn to have any chance of understanding the
>reasons. I'm impressed.
I'm going to commit another sin against usenet and humanity here:
ME TOO!
Arthur L. Rubin
>
> "Wayne Brown" <fwb...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
> news:n4iT8.3228$wj4.4...@e3500-atl2.usenetserver.com...
> >
> > Bottom posting is preferred because it keeps the chronological flow of the
> > messages correct. Most people read from top-to-bottom, but top posting
> > requires you to skip backwards through an article to get to the most
> > recent part.
>
> I am sorry, I do not understand. The "chronological flow" would be equally
> consistent whether all replies were top-posted or bottom-posted.
Only if you write backward withinin your comments.
I HAVE seen a top-poster post in that manner.
--
Arthur L. Rubin 216-...@mcimail.com
Michael Dahms
>
> "Wayne Brown" <fwb...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
> news:n4iT8.3228$wj4.4...@e3500-atl2.usenetserver.com...
> >
> > Bottom posting is preferred because it keeps the chronological flow of the
> > messages correct. Most people read from top-to-bottom, but top posting
> > requires you to skip backwards through an article to get to the most
> > recent part.
>
> I am sorry, I do not understand. The "chronological flow" would be equally
> consistent whether all replies were top-posted or bottom-posted.
No, it isn't. You never start reading in the last _line_ of a posting.
You read and write _always_ top-down.
Michael Dahms
f'up2 where?
Sam of California
thing, and that is that my main concern is that when someone does say
something about top-posting, what I see is that usually the criticism is
stronger than it should be and seems to assume that the person should know
better. For those newsgroups in which discussions are normal, it is more
reasonable for someone to spend time getting to know everyone. There are
some newsgroups in which people ask questions then leave. Many times people
should spend more time learning about those groups also, especially to the
extent of what is the topic of the group and looking for previous answers. I
think though if someone doesn't know the rules it doesn't help to blast them
any stronger than when someone is off-topic. It is the strength of the
criticism that I consider to be unproductive, and if old-timers don't
understand that then I think the ones that do understand will attain much
greater influence.
Sam of California
"Victor Sack" <sa...@uni-duesseldorf.de> wrote in message
news:1fekqde.p6j654nzitj4N%sa...@uni-duesseldorf.de...
>
> This really belongs on news.newusers.questions...
In "news.groups.questions" I asked where to go and you should see the
responses I got. Would I get naswers such as that in
"news.newusers.questions"? Would the audience be the same as here, or would
people be stubbon and totally uninterested in a discussion? Since the
explanation that it has always been that way is so prevalent, I am concerned
that in a newusers group that would be the only explanation provided.
> It is mostly newbies who are putting their new text on top. They only
> do so because they overwhelmingly use the brain-dead Netscape and MS
> newsreaders,
Over 80% of the time when top-posting is criticized the software is also
dumped on. The result is that in the view of users of the software, the
strength of the explanation is diminished.
> It is
> interesting that even Microsoft's own posting guidelines call for
> 'bottom posting' (see <http://www.jsiinc.com/newsgroup_document.htm>...
> scroll to the bottom of the page).
In the situations that motivated me to do something about, the comments have
been things like "don't top-post; it annoys the regualrs". There has been
little explanation about interspersing replies. Any explanation saying that
replies should be intersperesed have been so vague as to not be
understandable. So in other words the the message would just say not to
top-post, indicating that the entire reply should be at the bottom. This is
essentially what the people say when they are critical of top-posting.
In the Microsoft "Welcome - read this first" article, it explains to use the
interspersed style. It is not called an interspersed style, but whatever you
call it, it is not what I see as being what we are told to use. The style we
are told to use is not the top-post style, indicating that the entire reply
should go at the bottom. Sometimes the criticism says something about
trimming but it is so vague as to be misunderstood.
In this age of terrorism, it is unfortuante that the only way that so many
people know how to get people's cooperation is by flaming.
Taki Kogoma
to news.groups decree...
>In this age of terrorism, it is unfortuante that the only way that so many
>people know how to get people's cooperation is by flaming.
You *are* new 'round these parts, aren't you?
"If you can't stand the heat, get off Usenet" has been practical advice for
over 15 years.
--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk | "I'll get a life when someone
(Known to some as Taki Kogoma) | demonstrates that it would be
quirk @ swcp.com | superior to what I have now."
Veteran of the '91 sf-lovers re-org. | -- Gym Quirk
Victor Sack
> In "news.groups.questions" I asked where to go and you should see the
> responses I got. Would I get naswers such as that in
> "news.newusers.questions"? Would the audience be the same as here, or would
> people be stubbon and totally uninterested in a discussion? Since the
> explanation that it has always been that way is so prevalent, I am concerned
> that in a newusers group that would be the only explanation provided.
Why not go and lurk there? You can discover a lot about a newsgroup
that way.
news.newusers.questions was created specifically to help new users. For
the past few years, the group has been moderated, so I doubt any flames
would be allowed there. I haven't been reading the group very often,
but I know that some people there are going out of their way to be
helpful. They also have a helpful Web site with, among other things,
tips on quoting style. See
<http://Web.InfoAve.Net/~dcalhoun/nnq/nquote.html>.
Victor
Dick Wisan
There are two conventions about this. The convention about private
email, certainly business convention for email is to post on top. This
is the equivalent of having the file of previous correspondence on the
present matter brought in with the new letter. The file is there to
remind you what this is all about if you need it. Unless you need to
poke into the history of it, you normally want merely to read the new
letter.
The convention for mailing lists and newsgroups is different in two
important respects.
1. The most important difference is that you do _not_ include the
whole previous correspondence. You delete as much as possible,
leaving only enough to show the reader what you're talking
about. It's important to do this because after various people
have chipped in and perhaps replied to each other, the size of
the postings grows enormous, and burdens everyone's computer.
2. The second difference is that in a group, you post on the bottom.
As you read through a post like that, you're following the line
of the argument. You can skip whenever you like. Then you come
to the new part. As you read through this, you can intersperse
your own comments (and delete those parts of the prior postings
that you do not address), or you can wait and put your own essay
at the end.
Interspersing your comments means that everything is close to all
the comments by anyone else on the same point. You don't have to
jump back and forth in the file to find them. That's what Brown
meant by "skip backwards".
Sam of California, (sam...@socal.rr.com) says...
>
>"Wayne Brown" <fwb...@bellsouth.net> wrote
>>
>> Bottom posting is preferred because it keeps the chronological flow of the
>> messages correct. Most people read from top-to-bottom, but top posting
>> requires you to skip backwards through an article to get to the most
>> recent part.
>
>I am sorry, I do not understand. The "chronological flow" would be equally
>consistent whether all replies were top-posted or bottom-posted. It is a
>matter of consistency, not top or bottom, that matters, correct? Also, when
>replies are interspersed as we are doing, it is difficult or impossible to
>be chronologically consistent, correct?
>
>I think that many people might not understand "top posting requires you to
>skip backwards". You do explain later that some software starts at the
>bottom of a mesage and some software starts at the top. I think though that
>when you say "top posting requires you to skip backwards" it would help to
>explain that that depends upon the software used. The people you want to
>communicate that to are the ones less likely to understand what you mean.
[the rest snipped]
--
R. N. (Dick) Wisan Email: wis...@hartwick.edu
Snail: 37 Clinton St., Oneonta, NY 13820, USA
Just your opinion, please, Ma'am. No fax.
Vidar Grønvold
<Guido....@gmx.de> wrote:
>In the newsgroups in my countries language they tend to refer to a
>webpage, where good (interspersed style) quoting is explained and mostly
>try it in a polite style. Also nearly all groups regularly post
>beginner FAQs or provide webpages where all this is listed. Still, that
>hasn't helped much.
I think the inconspicuous reason for this is OE's inability to
show quoted text in a different color than new text. It takes a
bigger mental effort to sort quoted text from new text when all
text is black and all you have to go by is the quote marks on the
left. Software should do this, not the human reader. Just think
how color coding is tuted as an important feature with all good
text editors.
>Quoting is also not the only problem. We have special characters here
>which are not displayed correctly, if the MIME-codings and charsets are
>not correct. Unfortunately MS-Outlook Express doesn't set them.
>Furthermore, lines and quoted lines are not resorted to stay below about
>70 chars per line, which makes the posts very hard to read. And so on
>...
>
>There is also a webpage documenting what is needed to get OutlookExpress
>configured correctly and some additional programs which can be used to
>enforce correct Outlook behaviour.
Quotefix http://jump.to/oe-quotefix will fix the problem, even
color quoted text (it can even color different levels of quote
differently and that IMHO is overdoing it..no reason to to give
reasons to quote lots and lots..Agent which I use gives all
quotes the same color which is fine).
> Still MS seems to refuse to correct their stuff.
Yeah, one are tempted to speculate that Microsoft is actually
trying to destroy Usenet by giving out such a nice product
containing poisonous pills..
--
regards
Vidar Grønvold
Wayne Brown
> I think the inconspicuous reason for this is OE's inability to
> show quoted text in a different color than new text. It takes a
> bigger mental effort to sort quoted text from new text when all
> text is black and all you have to go by is the quote marks on the
> left. Software should do this, not the human reader. Just think
> how color coding is tuted as an important feature with all good
> text editors.
That's a matter of taste. Personally, I prefer the text to be all one
color and just use the > characters to indicate quoting. The newsreader
I use (tin) will display different levels of quoting in different colors
if I want it to do so, but I keep that "feature" turned off. (That's the
real mark of a good newsreader -- the ability to be configured to do
things the way the user wants it to work.)
(My favorite text editor, vi, works just fine without color too.)
--
Wayne Brown | "When your tail's in a crack, you improvise
fwb...@bellsouth.net | if you're good enough. Otherwise you give
| your pelt to the trapper."
"e^(i*pi) = -1" -- Euler | -- John Myers Myers, "Silverlock"
Jeffrey M. Vinocur
Wayne Brown <fwb...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>Vidar Grønvold <gron...@powertech.no> wrote:
>
>> I think the inconspicuous reason for this is OE's inability to
>> show quoted text in a different color than new text.
>
>color and just use the > characters to indicate quoting.
I find it depends on the quality of the poster's netiquette. In
groups with universally excellent netiquette, I'm quite happy to
have plain text. In general, I like what MT-newswatcher does,
which is to grey the quoted text slightly (and perhaps to put it
in italics? I forget) so it is a bit less prominent.
I find the multiple-colors thing to be simply distracting.
>(My favorite text editor, vi, works just fine without color too.)
Although vim does have syntax highlighting, even for newsgroup
post composition. I kinda like it.
John David Galt
>> In the newsgroups in my countries language they tend to refer to a
>> webpage, where good (interspersed style) quoting is explained and mostly
>> try it in a polite style. Also nearly all groups regularly post
>> beginner FAQs or provide webpages where all this is listed. Still, that
>> hasn't helped much.
FWIW, I feel moving each attribution line directly in front of the
material it refers to (as I have done here) should also be part of the
standard style. The practice avoids mistaken attributions arising in
later postings in which yours may be quoted 10 levels deep.
"Vidar Grønvold" wrote:
> I think the inconspicuous reason for this is OE's inability to
> show quoted text in a different color than new text. It takes a
> bigger mental effort to sort quoted text from new text when all
> text is black and all you have to go by is the quote marks on the
> left. Software should do this, not the human reader. Just think
> how color coding is tuted as an important feature with all good
> text editors.
Not intending to start a "religious" flame war, but there are several
other good reasons to shun Outlook Express. For one, if used "out of
the box" (without changing anything in the options menu), it will
automatically run message attachments of several types that may contain
viruses, including .exe and .doc files.
I recommend, and use, Netscape 4.7, which can be set to display quoted
material in a different color, boldface, or italics.
Vidar Grønvold
<fwb...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>Vidar Grønvold <gron...@powertech.no> wrote:
>> I think the inconspicuous reason for this is OE's inability to
>> show quoted text in a different color than new text. It takes a
>> bigger mental effort to sort quoted text from new text when all
>> text is black and all you have to go by is the quote marks on the
>> left. Software should do this, not the human reader. Just think
>> how color coding is tuted as an important feature with all good
>> text editors.
>
>That's a matter of taste. Personally, I prefer the text to be all one
>color and just use the > characters to indicate quoting. The newsreader
>I use (tin) will display different levels of quoting in different colors
>if I want it to do so, but I keep that "feature" turned off. (That's the
>real mark of a good newsreader -- the ability to be configured to do
>things the way the user wants it to work.)
I agree with the last sentence, but in the larger picture it is
also a matter of what is default setup in a program like OE.
People may use it as a tool to communicate without having any
inkling with the technicalities so a set of defaults which
corresponds to what is likely a majority of users will find
useful is also important. Agent does that. It ie shows quoted
text in a clear, non-intrusive blue (#0000FF).
You can have your own preferences of course, but I think there
are objective reasons why coloring quoted material promotes good
newsreading. Ok, I will only speak for myself, but when I'm
reading a group there are a lot of text my eyes and brain will
have to process, so I have to have my priorities firmly set: that
is to read the new text of the author of the current message. I
hardly ever read the quotes before the new text, though I'm happy
to have it there to quickly look up as a reference, which I often
need.
So sorting out quoted text is very basic to my reading as I
follow the flow of conversation, not relying on a lot of
pre-sorting, like scoring and killfiling. I need to read very
quickly and very likely superficial, and are thankful I can *at
the tiniest glance* focus directly at the new text. I hardly
think I'm a freak of nature thinking like that, but that this is
common to good newsreading. It is a mental effort as it is and I
don't need any extra, unneccesary burdens. Newsreaders should be
convenient.
--
regards
Vidar Grønvold
Vidar Grønvold
<sam...@socal.rr.com> wrote:
>"Guido Ostkamp" <Guido....@gmx.de> wrote in message
>> The top posts are mainly from users which have never seen computer
>> software other than Microsoft stuff.
>There are thousands of us, probably millions.
Yeah, millions for sure, but how many of them will, after have
been connected to Internet for a while, still believe that only
software developed by Microsoft programmers can run well on
WinOS? Only the stupid and the few with an unhealthy
psychological bonding with this software company.
I understand reasons not to go Linux, because I have never felt
the urge to go that way myself..life is to short, but if you shy
away from third-party windows applications you cancel the whole
process of natural selection among applications, and freely enter
the clammy embrace of uncle Bill.
--
regards
Vidar Grønvold
Brian Edmonds
> That's a very generous number. I've *never* seen a top poster edit
> for context.
I have, but it's even wierder. What I see occasionally is a poster copy
some quoted text to provide context for their reply, but then leave the
entire original appended to the post. Why he or she would not at that
point just nuke it is rather beyond me.
Brian.
John Smith
> Can some one please tell me why some top post and others bottom post.
| Top posting is often seen as the mark of a newbie who wants
| to jump in and start talking before taking the time to learn what's
| acceptable to the rest of the group.
# Unfortunately trying to tell them what they are doing wrong and why does
# not make them considerate.
I don't think that top or bottom posting is "right" or "wrong". It's a
matter of taste using top posting or bottom posting or both. I think the
other isn't more "acceptable" than the other.
I use both: usually I bottom post, but sometimes I top post. Sometimes I
don't quote at all if there is no need for that.
More important is that what you write is understandable.
/ With the standard (or bottom) posting style you can always decide who
/ has posted what part of the message
To me the subject is more important than who is the writer, because in the
internet you can always lie your true identity, so you don't always know to
whom you are writing to.
\ I have seen messages with several hundred lines of totally unchanged
\ predecessor message quoted and 1 line on top saying "Me too" or
\ something like that. What a waste of storage space. And that is
\ transfered through millions of computers and stored in big archives
\ making archive search even more complicated.
There are many nonsense newsgroups, which are stored to many computers, and
I haven't seen people complaining about that. Remember that the storage
space is growing all the time, and text doesn't use much space.
% Also nearly all groups regularly post beginner FAQs or provide webpages
% where all this is listed. Still, that hasn't helped much.
The FAQs for newbies about top and bottom posting don't "help", because
some people prefer the other style more than the other. When you like a
style you stay with it.
This discussion about top and bottom posting is like a discussion how
people should read their newspapers: some people read the newspaper from
the beginning to the end, and some read it backwards, some just read a few
pages from the middle. I haven't seen anyone getting annoyed about in which
order someone is reading a newspaper, and I haven't seen people talking to
strangers how they should read their newspapers.
& Many times people should spend more time learning about those groups
& also, especially to the extent of what is the topic of the group and
& looking for previous answers.
Discussion about top and bottom posting doesn't belong to this group, but
still here we are discussing about top and bottom posting. Sometimes people
just start a thread on a "wrong" newsgroup to get more attention to the
subject. People are social, and they want to discuss what's on their mind.
$ I think though if someone doesn't know the rules it doesn't help to blast
$ them any stronger than when someone is off-topic.
Sometimes people don't obey the rules as we know for example from the spam
advertisements to unappropriate newsgroups.
£ It is the strength of the criticism that I consider to be unproductive,
Naming people stupid or something else when you don't like their style is
annoying and doesn't help anyone but you have to live with the fact that
people are different and they have their own likings and some people have
the tendency to tell their opinions even if all the people don't like those
opinions. You just have to cope with that on the internet where there are
millions of different people from different cultures and religions
together.
* 1. Quote only, what is really necessary
* 2. Place your remarks directly below the quotation (preferably after
* adding a blank line)
* 3. Cut off your lines when reaching about 70 characters in a line.
* 4. Don't use rich-text or HTML messages.
I agree that those are the _guidelines_ to follow in newsgroups whenever
possible, but people don't have to obey those guidelines always like
robots. They can use their own brains to decide what is appropriate in a
particular situation.
John Smith
Stuart aka "Skam" wrote:
> Thanks all for your reply's, some how I think I know all there is to know
> about top or bottom posting (vbg).
And if this discussion wasn't enough here are some pages to check out:
http://www.dickalba.demon.co.uk/usenet/guide/faq_topp.html
http://www.fmf.nl/~anton/topposting.html
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/usenet/brox.html
http://web.presby.edu/~nnqadmin/nnq/nquote.html
http://www.html-faq.com/etiquette/?toppost
http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote2.html
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/g.mccaughan/g/remarks/uquote.html
http://www.i-hate-computers.demon.co.uk/
Parse Tree
news:iqgT8.12190$YM1.90...@news-text.cableinet.net...
> Can some one please tell me why some top post and others bottom post.
Some people like bottom posting, and some people like top posting.
> yet the ones that bottom post seem always to have a bee in there bonnet
and
> enjoy flaming those that top post..Yet top posters dont seem to mind
either
> way!!
It's mainly due to the reasons that people top or bottom post. Many people
bottom post, not because they genuinely think it is better, but because they
were flamed into doing it. It infuriates them that anyone else can get away
with something that they could not.
> As my news prog always starts a new message at the top thats where I do
> it...is that wrong?
Nope. You'll notice that the standard in email is for top posting style.
It also depends on who you're catering your message to.
If you look at it via the scrolling perspective then assuming that your post
is a single page, and the quoted material is a single page then you can find
a few interesting relationships. For a top post, someone that is already
familiar with the context (having read previous messages in the thread) need
not scroll at all. This benefits regulars of groups that read the majority
of posts. However, if the person is not familiar with context (a less
frequent occurrence, since the majority of threads do not last that long,
and short threads usually comprise the majority of posts), then that person
has to scroll double (one page down, and then one page up). With bottom
posts, the person has to scroll a page no matter whether they are aware of
context or not.
I find top posting to be a bit neater too, in many cases. Particularly with
long conversations the block of text indicating who wrote what can get
garbled.
I do whatever I feel like, but often top post for spite (I almost always
snip sigs and useless crap like that though).
Parse Tree
I've decided to compose a FAQ about the issue, because so many people are
misguided about top posting (I blame it on bottom posting propaganda).
<ba...@dmcom.net> wrote in message news:3D1E16...@dmcom.net...
>
> You do not want to visit a.r.w where *sighes* I have been working on
> an FAQ question of why do so many here top post. The people that
> complain about top posting are the ones that get flamed out of the
> group. *sighes*
ba...@dmcom.net
<pars...@hotmail.com> wrote:
<followup set, not on topic for this group>
>Ha ha! Bard we'll get you to top post yet!
Not likely
>
>I've decided to compose a FAQ about the issue, because so many people are
>misguided about top posting (I blame it on bottom posting propaganda).
The answer is M$ programing erroes that users believe is correct. A
very short FAQ. You might read the RFCs on this as well before
writing an FAQ and posible getting into a Usenet wide flame war.
>
><ba...@dmcom.net> wrote in message news:3D1E16...@dmcom.net...
>>
>> You do not want to visit a.r.w where *sighes* I have been working on
>> an FAQ question of why do so many here top post. The people that
>> complain about top posting are the ones that get flamed out of the
>> group. *sighes*
As for the FAQ, I am leaning to expanding 1.3 as a dhort answer
appears to be prefered.
>
>
>
--
news:alt.pagan FAQ at http://www.dmcom.net/bard/altpag.txt
news:alt.religion.wicca FAQ at http://www.dmcom.net/bard/arwfaq2.txt
news:news.groups FAQ at http://www.dmcom.net/bard/ngfaq.txt
John David Galt
> I've decided to compose a FAQ about the issue, because so many people are
> misguided about top posting (I blame it on bottom posting propaganda).
It is already covered in a perfectly good FAQ (one of the RFCs).
Sounds like you're out to have the last word by writing a bogus "FAQ", just
like the one about voting NO on Usenet votes (I'll get you back on topic yet...)
Parse Tree
news:3D26878E...@diogenes.sacramento.ca.us...
> Parse Tree wrote:
> > I've decided to compose a FAQ about the issue, because so many people
are
> > misguided about top posting (I blame it on bottom posting propaganda).
>
> It is already covered in a perfectly good FAQ (one of the RFCs).
I did a search for "top post" at faqs.org and came up with nothing.
Any suggestions about where to look?
> Sounds like you're out to have the last word by writing a bogus "FAQ",
just
> like the one about voting NO on Usenet votes (I'll get you back on topic
yet...)
I haven't seen a FAQ that wasn't from the perspective that top posting is
bad. Are there any pro-top posting FAQ's?
Timo Salmi
> Ha ha! Bard we'll get you to top post yet!
> I've decided to compose a FAQ about the issue, because so many people are
> misguided about top posting (I blame it on bottom posting propaganda).
Anyone is free to write pages of one's own and call them a FAQ, or
whatever, to one's heart's content. However, that alone will not
necessarily make the attempt a FAQ in the true sense of the word,
but rather one's personal advocacy bid. Calling something a FAQ, not
to speak of perhaps doing it with anonymity, are no guarantees of
the material earning serious recognition. But be that as may. Good
luck to your endeavor.
All the best, Timo
--
Prof. Timo Salmi ftp & http://garbo.uwasa.fi/ archives 193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance ; University of Vaasa
mailto:t...@uwasa.fi <http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/> ; FIN-65101, Finland
Timo's FAQ materials at http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/tsfaq.html
Towse
>
> "John David Galt" <j...@diogenes.sacramento.ca.us> wrote in message
> news:3D26878E...@diogenes.sacramento.ca.us...
> > Parse Tree wrote:
> > > I've decided to compose a FAQ about the issue, because so many people
> > > are misguided about top posting (I blame it on bottom posting propaganda).
> >
> > It is already covered in a perfectly good FAQ (one of the RFCs).
>
> I did a search for "top post" at faqs.org and came up with nothing.
>
> Any suggestions about where to look?
RFC 1855 (Oct 1955)
<http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt>
" - If you are sending a reply to a message or a posting be
sure you
summarize the original at the top of the message, or
include just
enough text of the original to give a context. This will
make
sure readers understand when they start to read your
response.
Since NetNews, especially, is proliferated by distributing
the
postings from one host to another, it is possible to see a
response to a message before seeing the original. Giving
context
helps everyone. But do not include the entire original!"
Sounds like the standard is précis of original context _followed
_by reply.
> I haven't seen a FAQ that wasn't from the perspective that top posting is
> bad. Are there any pro-top posting FAQ's?
Should there be?
Sal
--
1800+ useful links for writers
<http://www.internet-resources.com/writers/>
Towse
> RFC 1855 (Oct 1955)
Oct 1995.
Good grief. I was in Dickinson, ND, in 1955, a long way from
where I was in Oct 1995.
Dick Wisan
>
>"Wayne Brown" <fwb...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
>>
>> Bottom posting is preferred because it keeps the chronological flow of
>> the messages correct. Most people read from top-to-bottom, but top
>> posting requires you to skip backwards through an article to get to
>> the most recent part.
>
>I am sorry, I do not understand. The "chronological flow" would be
>equally consistent whether all replies were top-posted or bottom-posted.
>It is a matter of consistency, not top or bottom, that matters, correct?
>Also, when replies are interspersed as we are doing, it is difficult or
>impossible to be chronologically consistent, correct?
>
>I think that many people might not understand "top posting requires you
>
>> Bottom posting has been the accepted practice on Usenet for many years.
>> A lot of us first came here at a time when it was expected that newbies
>> hang around silently long enough to learn the rules before they started
>> posting.expected of participants there before posting.
>
>...If the best justification for something is that it has always been
>done that way, then it is something worth discussing. Has there been
>a productive discussion of this in which "that's the way it is done" is
>not an end of the the discussion?
Yes, and we have that discussion over and over. In fact, there are
good reasons for each of the two conventions you've mentioned, each
in its proper place.
In business and private communications, like a paper letter, you want
to see what _this_ letter has to say. You may also need to be reminded
what's gone on in the correspondence before, so a good secretary will
bring the whole file of this correspondence with the new letter on
top, for the reader to consult if required. That's why the convention
in business writing is to put the new message on top, but you quote
the _entire_ correspondence below that for reference. It does mean the
messages get bigger and bigger, but that's not serious. (Mostly, you
don't bother with any but the first few.)
In a newsgroup or a mailing list, you're following a conversation with
any number of people, and what you send goes to everybody on the mailing
list or (worse) to every ISP who handles usenet and everybody subscribed
to the group. So:
1. It's important _not_ to let the messages grow and grow. (Think how
fast the size grows if each message contains all the previous ones
by anybody in the group, and think how much disk space that will eat
up on computers all over the world.) Therefore, the convention is
to quote as little as possible --just enough to show a reader who
drops in on this letter what you're commenting on. (The reader can
always look back at recent posts to see the full text, which is a
good reason for keeping track of who said what as you write.)
2. Since it's a conversation, it's important to keep the flow right.
Now, the software that sometimes starts you at the bottom and
sometimes starts you at the top is _writing_ software. Reading
software starts at the top, like any letter or newspaper or book.
Normally, word processors intended for private or business
correspondence start you writing at the top. Newsreaders may do
it either way, but it doesn't matter. Mine starts me at the top
because that's what the message I'm replying to did. You read
down (as you always do), and when you come to a place where you
want to put in a comment, you do it right there, directly below
the text you're commenting on, and then you back up a bit and
cut out everything above that isn't needed. Or, perhaps, you
start down the message cutting and cutting until you come to the
first thing you want to comment on.
And so you proceed through the letter, cutting and writing. There's
a kind of art to doing that well, especially when (keeping track with
the indicator marks and indentations) you have to deal with something
with a history like He said... then She said... then So & so said...
then She said... to which I replied... to which She replied...
to which He replied... to which I now reply... You'll note that in
this case, I've cut the previous correspondence (maybe not enough),
but left it all up top while I write you an essay on top and bottom
posting.
You have to judge how far back in the history you have to go to make
it clear why you're saying what you're saying, and at the same time
you have to cut as much as you can without losing the thread.
It is, certainly, too bad that people tend to jump on newcomers. Replying
on top marks you as accustomed to social and business correspondence but
a newbie to newsgroups. Since it breaks the flow of the conversation,
people jump on you. This is discourteous though understandable. It
happens because the oldcomers have seen the same mistake many many times
& they're fed up with it. It's wrong to take that tone, but it's hard for
people not to.