Re: OT: Could We Please Learn to Trim Our Posts? <rant>

Elaine Parrish <esp@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:

>Pine stills promotes this protocol today by moving the old post down
>and placing the cursor above the old post for the reply when the "Reply"
>button is clicked.

That doesn't mean anything. Email replies used to be done in
"quoted-reply-quoted" etc. form. That is, one would quote the part of
the email they were replying to, put their reply below it, then quote a
2nd part of the email, reply to it, etc. The cursor at the top of the
email doesn't mean that's where you're "supposed" to reply.
You can configure how text is quoted in Pine -- the default is the ">"
sign, I believe. My newsreader uses Pine as its editor and that's how I
see Usenet, exactly the way I used to reply to emails.
However, email is definitely changing. I noticed that at work and
with newer people on the 'net, they reply by top posting their reply and
quoting the original email below. I haven't seen that change on Usenet,
though.

>I well remember Usenet of the early and mid 90s and the dog fight that
>everything was. Top posting or bottom posting was always the raging war
>and became the choice of the majority. It was termed as "group culture".

You and I were on some of the same newsgroups, and I think it's
amusing we came away with two different ideas about what was happening.
I have been on Usenet since '93 and I never once was told by anyone but
newbies who didn't know better that top-posting was proper protocol.
I'd be very interested to know what groups you were in which claimed
otherwise.

>I withdrew my first response because I went and read the current
>Netiquette stance. I should have done so before I posted. Like English,
>Math, and Science, the stance has changed for Usenet.

Elaine, with all due respect, unless you're remembering a protocol
from before the Eternal September, it's the same as it has been for 13
odd years.

Stacia

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