Re: Top Posting (was: [Freebsd 5.4 not finding my NIC])

From: Vizion (vizion_at_vizion.occoxmail.com)
Date: 05/28/05

  • Next message: Kris Kennaway: "Re: Problem with HT support in 5.4" 
    To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Date: Sat, 28 May 2005 10:52:32 -0700

    On Saturday 28 May 2005 09:28, the author Chad Leigh -- Shire.Net LLC
    contributed to the dialogue on Re: Top Posting (was: [Freebsd 5.4 not
    finding my NIC]):
    >someone wrote:
    >>>> Think about the effect of long paragraphs and then having to move
    >>>> backwards and forwards and you read one paragraph downwards and
    >>>> then are
    >>>> foprced to move upwards to read the subsequent posting....
    >>>> Tha means scanning and rescanning.
    >>>> Top posting is neither sensible or practicable for the reader.
    >>>> I learnt from those who showed me when I started using email well
    >>>> before
    >>>> the internet began.
    >>>> Take care
    >
    >Utter BS.
    expletives are funny -- for those of use with a sense of humor :-)

    >You don't have to move back and forth to the top and to
    >the bottom.

    You need to move to the bottom before you post to remove unnecessary bottom
    material in any case. It is easy to forget to clean up when you top post - so
    why not move there and then post in the knowledge that you are thereby
    following the rules.

    You have to move back and forth if there are a series of postings and the
    first posting is at the bottom and the last at the top. You move down to read
    the post and then up past what you have read through the previous post and
    then down through that one etc..

    I understand that people need to feel that their contribution is important.
    For this reason I wonder,if for some people, the idea of bottom posting does
    not appeal because it puts their words after those contributed by others.

    >A lot of us follow a thread and don't like to have to
    >read the whole thread each time an update is made.
    >>
    You dont have to read -- you just go to the end (sometimes you are surprised
    by postings you may have missed because you assumed you had read the whole
    thread and find out you had missed something- (I find top posters often fall
    into that trap) -- clean up and then post.
     
    My reaction is there is truth in what you say for those who remember previous
    postings however for the majority who have not (including those who take the
    postings as a daily archive for corporate reference) that is not true.

    That is why the rule on all FreeBSD lists is against top posting -- and always
    has been (as it is for most mail lists)

    Do you not think that in the immediacy of the dialogue it is easy to forget
    that the greatest value of our current contributions is the value they have
    as an archive? .

    >There are times
    >when top posting is MORE APPROPRIATE and times when top post is LESS
    >APPROPRIATE.
    I hear you -- you do not need to shout <grinz> the question is more
    appropriate for whom? The reader or the writer?? For the to and fro of
    personal correspondence I think I might be tempted to agree with you. But to
    make an assumption that everyone is following the posting well I think that
    is one assumption too many.

    >Top posting is not evil
    I would concur -- but as my argument does not depend upon "evilness" it is not
    to my mind a relevant point :-)

    >and often is EASIER to read.
    Your notion depends upon the mental model you have created for yourself to
    represent the mailing list world. Why should you make such an assumption if
    your model does not take into account the reality that the communication is
    going to thousands of people most of whom will not read what is said for
    days?
    How can you make such an assumption if your model of readership does not take
    into account the fact that the majority of readers will not have any
    recollection of previous contributions?
    >

    >But long drawn on threads are often read easier with
    >top posting so that those of us who remember what happened earlier in
    >the thread can get to the meat of it and we can just scroll down as
    >much as necessary to catch up. If everyone top posted in a thread it
    >is easy to read that way.
    Are you not contradicting yourself here..
    >
    >Email user since before 1984.

    Well me to -- well before then and before tcp/ip-- Oh the days of uucp - when
    you had to know the route!!!!!!!!!!!!

    take care
    david 

    -- 
40 yrs navigating and computing in blue waters.
English Owner & Captain of British Registered 60' bluewater Ketch S/V Taurus.
 Currently in San Diego, CA. Sailing May bound for Europe via Panama Canal.
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