Re: OT--(was: Taking on city hall) Top Posting

In article <n92ip19c3hdhdfgcmp2micoa7q5l49cl3k@xxxxxxx>,
Barney-Killer <bk@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> For what it's worth, I prefer top-posting.
> If I'm following a thread of interest closely enough (and if I wasn't
> interested, I just wouldn't follow it at all....), I don't have any
> problem keeping context with top-postings.

And if you're not following closely enough do you prefer inline posting?
I note that you are using Forte's Agent to read your newsgroups: it does
a great job of threading articles, but it still can't help you if an
article has not propagated to your news server yet the reply to it
already has. How then do you keep track of context? Could you allocate
the colour of quoted text to another colour than the default blue? I
have my quoted text showing as a mid-grey colour (new text is black) so
it is instantly obvious about what is old and what is new text, yet
still very readable. Either way, both you and I don't have to read the
quoted text, but can read the reply and the quoted text is right there
with the reply to give it context.

I tend to graze in newsgroups, since I find that the Subject lines are
often misleading, or thread drift has made them no longer relevant. As a
result, I don't keep a lot in my head regarding individual threads and
who said what last week, or yesterday.

> What really burns my a$$ is having to scroll down thru three pages of
> quoted crap to see a response that is only three words long, and
> totally irrelevant.
>
> I 'm more liable to
> killfile people who bottom post, especially when they don't have
> enough sense to TRIM THE QUOTED CRAP to just the "needed" length.

I don't think you'll have any disagreement from any of us that reading
three pages of crap just to post a one line or phrase comment is the
worst possible thing, worse than quoting nothing at all. It certainly is
the thing that will have me killfile someone faster than anything else
(except maybe cascades).

Let's get this straw man out of the way: I don't know of anyone
advocating full quoting with bottom posting. None. The only alternative
of top posting is not bottom posting, it's inline posting with trimming
and paraphrasing. This is not an argument of "Top Posting, Bottom
Posting" - this is a false dichotomy:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dichotomy>. The fact that a reply
may come at the end of all of the quoted text should be a coincidence,
not an ideal. If Bottom Posting after full quoted text really is
objectionable then the desired alternative is not Top Posting.

> Balls! If it's about communication, then the reply should come first.
> BK

If the reply to an article is "Yes" then how do you know what that reply
was all about, unless you know context? Not everyone reads the
newsgroups often enough or pays close attention enough to the threads so
that they automatically understand context based on just a reply. Great
for you if you can, but if you post you should consider all the readers
(or potential readers) that may not. Sometimes it's their newsreaders
that prevent the communication of context that you have. Inline reply
with trimmed and paraphrased text will give them that context.

Bill Lee
.

Relevant Pages

  • Mouth Breathing Top Posters
    ... Why is top-posting such a bad thing? ... Bottom vs. top posting and quotation style on Usenet ... trimming and of course no contextualizing.of prior posts; ... context posters and because it inappropriately emphasizes ...
    (alt.html)
  • Re: [OT] Top Posting (Was: Instances of an Application)
    ... People bitching about top posting ... I'm confused why your sig states top-posting is a bad thing (and is ... even to those of us who prefer bottom posting. ...
    (microsoft.public.win32.programmer.ui)
  • Re: Usenet Cancelling
    ... Why is top-posting such a bad thing? ... "Posting at the top because that's where the cursor ... >people who quote three, four, nine, 25KB of posts simply have ... context posters and because it inappropriately emphasizes ...
    (sci.electronics.misc)
  • Re: Usenet Cancelling
    ... Why is top-posting such a bad thing? ... "Posting at the top because that's where the cursor ... >people who quote three, four, nine, 25KB of posts simply have ... context posters and because it inappropriately emphasizes ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
  • Re: SSH Correction
    ... >> bottom posting is antiquated and has it's basis only in history. ... Top-posting seems to further ... that made the *BSD ...
    (comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc)