Crashj wrote:

On or about Mon, 01 Nov 2004 10:12:23 -0400, Derek Broughton
wrote something like:


there are worse things than topposting. (Funny, though)

Tell me about it. Ever hear of Ed Conrad? ;-)

LOL. I hadn't, but Google had. Now I wish I still hadn't. How do you use
the word "pseudoscience" as a _positive_ self-descriptive term?
--
derek

The irritating thing about NOT top posting is that this is supposed to be a
conversation. I know of no one in a conversation who repeats the people
who've just spoken ... that is idiotic.... to me at least.
I hit delete if the person has not had presence of mind
to edit the previous speakers..... even then Bottom Posting is an irritant -
I don't give a hoot what usenet says.

Nedrda in Missouri

"Stephen M. Henning" wrote in message
...
Crashj wrote:

A: Because it is the opposite of how a conversation is scripted.
Q: Why is top posting so annoying?

A: Top posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet?

There is only one thing worse than top posting; that is not editing the
quoted material left before bottom posting. Usually a person is
responding to a single or couple points and only those points need be
left and then they can be carefully edited.

If the response does not appear in the window without scrolling, then
hit delete. Simple.

Nedra wrote:

The irritating thing about NOT top posting is that this is supposed to be
a
conversation. I know of no one in a conversation who repeats the people
who've just spoken ... that is idiotic.... to me at least.

That's why there's quoting in every news reader. In a real conversation,
you have immediate feedback. In an news/mail conversation you have to
supply a _hint_ as to what you're responding to. Top posters can only do
that by including the whole message.

I hit delete if the person has not had presence of mind
to edit the previous speakers..... even then Bottom Posting is an irritant
- I don't give a hoot what usenet says.

Sorry, Nedra, but that indicates that you don't give a hoot about your
readers, either. Some mysterious "Usenet" didn't come up with a set of
rules about posting. It's a consensus among users. Like any consensus, it
only works when people are prepared to put a little effort into it. It's
not, either, Top-posting vs. Bottom posting, as top-posters usually put it.
It's top-posting vs intelligent conversational editing. Leave enough of
the previous message for context and respond to individual points, and
readers will be much happier.
--
derek

Nedra wrote:
The irritating thing about NOT top posting is that this is supposed to be a
conversation. I know of no one in a conversation who repeats the people
who've just spoken ... that is idiotic.... to me at least.
I hit delete if the person has not had presence of mind
to edit the previous speakers..... even then Bottom Posting is an irritant -
I don't give a hoot what usenet says.


More and more groups I have noticed seem to be using top posting. I try
to adhere to the group's desires, but find top posting much easier to
deal with and in-line ("inline", "in line" ?) posting for when it makes
sense. Top posting is faster to read if you follow a group consistently.
Bottom posting works better for the occasional user, but I have found
it easy enough to read from bottom to top. I don't know about
newsgroups but 99% of my email replies back and forth are top posted and
I do a lot of work by email with a broad range of companies.

Some folks are quite touchy about it of course.

If I don't see the message without scrolling, I skip it. Sometimes it's
appropriate to top, sometimes bottom, occasionally in the middle. There
are enough rules in the world without adding them at random.

rtk


Nedra wrote:
The irritating thing about NOT top posting is that this is supposed to be a
conversation. I know of no one in a conversation who repeats the people
who've just spoken ... that is idiotic.... to me at least.
I hit delete if the person has not had presence of mind
to edit the previous speakers..... even then Bottom Posting is an irritant -
I don't give a hoot what usenet says.

Nedrda in Missouri

"Stephen M. Henning" wrote in message
...

Crashj wrote:


A: Because it is the opposite of how a conversation is scripted.
Q: Why is top posting so annoying?

A: Top posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet?

There is only one thing worse than top posting; that is not editing the
quoted material left before bottom posting. Usually a person is
responding to a single or couple points and only those points need be
left and then they can be carefully edited.

If the response does not appear in the window without scrolling, then
hit delete. Simple.

Mark Bannister wrote:

More and more groups I have noticed seem to be using top posting. I try

More and more groups have members with people who couldn't care less, and
simply use whatever form their news reader provides as a default.

to adhere to the group's desires, but find top posting much easier to
deal with and in-line ("inline", "in line" ?) posting for when it makes
sense. Top posting is faster to read if you follow a group consistently.

I beg to differ. I read extremely well, but I read a huge amount of online
postings (typically 100 emails per day - after filtering spam - and 1-200
news postings). You can't keep all those threads straight with
top-posting. fwiw, I would have said "inline" but my spell-check dislikes
it. Definitely "in-line" rather than "in line".

Bottom posting works better for the occasional user, but I have found

Bottom posting is _never_ right, except in the trivial case where it's
indistinguishable from in-line posting.

newsgroups but 99% of my email replies back and forth are top posted and
I do a lot of work by email with a broad range of companies.

99% of my email correspondence (as opposed to mailing lists) is also
top-posted. Partly, that's different because we really _are_ having a
conversation - business email (unfortunately) holds my attention more than
a rec.ponds thread - and I _never_ edit business correspondence anyway. We
keep the last message in a thread as the entire history of the
correspondence. Partly it's because my business correspondence is
generally conducted via MS Outlook which has _no_ usable facility for
in-line posting. It frequently irritates me that I can't easily respond to
a question point-by-point.

Some folks are quite touchy about it of course.

Oh, yeah?? Says who? :-)
--
derek

Now, now Derek. Don't go putting words in my mouth or thoughts there that
have
no business being there. Wow! You are certainly in a judgemental mood this
morning.

My way of keeping up with the conversation is via
the Subject of the post. And then there is a glimmer of what the
person said attached to my answer.

But then I do have an extraordinary memory ;^)

Nedra

"Derek Broughton" wrote in message
...
Nedra wrote:

The irritating thing about NOT top posting is that this is supposed to
be
a
conversation. I know of no one in a conversation who repeats the people
who've just spoken ... that is idiotic.... to me at least.

That's why there's quoting in every news reader. In a real conversation,
you have immediate feedback. In an news/mail conversation you have to
supply a _hint_ as to what you're responding to. Top posters can only do
that by including the whole message.

I hit delete if the person has not had presence of mind
to edit the previous speakers..... even then Bottom Posting is an
irritant
- I don't give a hoot what usenet says.

Sorry, Nedra, but that indicates that you don't give a hoot about your
readers, either. Some mysterious "Usenet" didn't come up with a set of
rules about posting. It's a consensus among users. Like any consensus, it
only works when people are prepared to put a little effort into it. It's
not, either, Top-posting vs. Bottom posting, as top-posters usually put
it.
It's top-posting vs intelligent conversational editing. Leave enough of
the previous message for context and respond to individual points, and
readers will be much happier.
--
derek

The majority of Usenet-users prefer bottom-posting. In addition to
bottom-posting, it is customary to leave out non-relevant parts of the
message with regard to the reply, and to put the reply directly beneath
the quoted relevant parts. If you want to know more about writing new
posts. Check out this site:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~hanb/documents/quotingguide.html

Bottom-posting is proper Usenet Etiquette. Check out the following URL:

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1855.html

Nedra wrote:

Now, now Derek. Don't go putting words in my mouth or thoughts there that
have
no business being there. Wow! You are certainly in a judgemental mood this
morning.

I'm really not - and I'm not trying to put words in your mouth either. You
did say "I don't give a hoot what usenet says", and I'm saying you _should_
give a hoot, because it isn't some rule that is created by somebody who has
only his own interests in mind, it's a _guideline_ created by usenet users
as a whole (admittedly, some time ago, when we were all geeks) to try to
reduce problems.

Ignoring netiquette, for whatever reason, is done not only at your own
peril, but to the detriment of all usenetters.
--
derek

Stephen M. Henning wrote:

The majority of Usenet-users prefer bottom-posting. In addition to

afaik, the majority of Usenet users prefer to read _inline_ posting.
Unfortunately, many of them aren't interested in taking the time, either.

Bottom-posting is proper Usenet Etiquette. Check out the following URL:

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1855.html

rfc1855 says _nothing_ about bottom posting. The word "bottom" doesn't even
appear. Of course, the RFC itself says nothing directly about top posting
either, though it does say "be sure you summarize the original at the top
of the message, or include just enough text of the original to give a
context".

The biggest problem with top-, inline- or bottom- posting or is the people
who insist on changing the style in the middle of a thread.
--
derek