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

On Sat, 28 Jan 2006, Glitter Ninja wrote:

Hi Stacia,

> 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.
>

Please know that I am not arguing for top posting in Usenet. I'm not even
debating that Usenet should change or that top posting is better. My
reply was to the charge that those that liked top posting didn't even know
why they felt the way they did (and some other snotty accusations <g>).

My statement above was regarding email, not Usenet. The email
default for Pine is still top posting at the college and university
level around here. AFAIK, in-line and
then top posting were always the standards for email - at least around
here at the colleges and universities. I say "colleges and universities"
because here they were the trendsetters in computers and pcs. I don't know
where anyone learned about computers and pcs other than college level
educational institutions at the time. Here, they were the only places.

I know that the colleges and universities around here took their lead from
the University of Washington and then from whatever was considered the
leading authority of the day. I don't know who was in charge of setting
the first protocols anywhere. Around here, it was the local colleges and
universitites and it filtered down from there.

You go to college. You learn what they teach you. They're not always
right, but who is? Who is the consummate authority? Geez, I don't know.


> >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.
>

Yeah, I bet we were! <g> I read somewhere during the 90s that at one time
there were about 150,000 groups. sheesh. I read not long ago that there
were about 3,000 now. Sorry, no cites, and no voucher of credibilty.

I have no idea what the groups were. I visited a lot of topics. This is
one of the ng groups I have followed throughout the years.

Well, the debate is still on-going as is evidenced by this thread. I think
I'm the only one that referenced Netiquette and I did that in error, which
I said in another post. All (10 or 12 or so) of the private listserves to
which I belong are top posting. Apparently, a few people here do have
experience with top posting groups because they have a preference.

When you say that only newbies thought top posting was proper protocol,
perhaps they were involved with a college or university where top posting
was the protocol for email.

Where did we learn that bottom posting was correct or top posting was
correct? I don't know. I can only speak for myself. Everybody had to
learn everything somewhere. But where? And who is the authority (or better
yet, who was way back there in the beginning)? Again, I don't know.

> >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.


That may well be true. I know that when I was in school during those
years, we were given websites to reference and educatonal materials (this
was also true when I began to teach). Usenet was never a focus in Academe
back then. The focus was email - where the posting protocol was top and a
great deal of Netiquette dealt with email. There were a number of websites
then and all were some different. Generally, several websites were needed
to get all aspects.

What was included specifically regarding Usenet in my materials was very
limited. One peice of printed material that I had talked about cultural
norms and groups being like little towns with societies unique to them
and that whatever the group decided should be accepted by everyone. It
didn't promote top posting, AIR. It only talked about the groups setting
their own rules and limitations with in the guidelines of Netiquette,
which was focused on social conduct. In the pages that I had,
Netiquette did not have a hard and fast rule about top/bottom posting -
again saying that one should post as the group posts. It was this latter
that was the basis of the arguments.


>
> Stacia

Elaine, too

.