Re: The Dacrons do Florida! (in flash)

There's 50 posts (so far) on newsreader formatting. Oh brother!


"Al Balmer" <albalmer@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ui5fu1ppnfb93gulm9q504pdac5cl32f59@xxxxxxxxxx
On Sun, 5 Feb 2006 09:48:40 -0800, "Dave Thompson"
<dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Jimbo" <no@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:9XoFf.27201$F_3.23772@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

<snip>

Since you got netkopped about your posting style, here are the
suggestions.
That's all they are. It is a free country and you can do as you wish.

It IS recommended that one posts to USENET only in ascii. Some servers
will
dump HTML or binary messages in text only newsgroups.

In OE do the following:

1. Choose Tools, Options.
2. Click on the Send Tab.
3. At the bottom of the window choose Plain Text for News Sending Option.
4. Click on the Plain Text Settings Button and choose "Automatically wrap
text at..." Choose 76 or less characters.

It also is recommended to not top post. Again, your choice.

Bottom posting is an artifact from the REALLY old days of ARPANET that
carried over to today. Early readers would just display the message file
with no formatting.

No formatting is needed with plain text. Early readers (and modern
ones too) just display what is sent.

Additionally, when replying, messaging software could
only append new data to the end of the file.

Actually, it is recommended to post each part of a reply following the
writing being replied to. Neither strict top posting nor bottom
posting is desirable.

Of course, it is now just a societal convention.

If making an article that can be read from top to bottom without
jumping up and down the page is what you call a "societal convention",
you must be thinking of other languages that read bottom to top or
left to right. In English, top to bottom, left to right is the norm.

Everyone insists because
everyone insists. Many efficiency studies have shown that appending
replies
to the top of an electonic message make reading more efficient.

Nonsense. Cite one. I suppose that if you have a good memory and only
deal with a couple of threads that don't last for more than a day,
top-posting would be efficient. But then, why quote anything at all?
If you don't think anyone needs to read what's after your writing,
delete it.

It's
similar to the way that the Government and Military treat replies to
written
memos. They are stapled to the top of the stack.


--
Al Balmer
Sun City, AZ


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