On Jun 21, 2014, at 7:21 AM, wm4 <[email protected]> wrote: >> I also top posted once and I was also told that this is rude. >> >> This must be an FFmpeg thing. I have never heard of this being "rude" >> before (no offense guys). > > So far I've only seen cehoyos complaining about it being rude. I find > his pedantry about this quite rude in return.
It isn’t rude. It never has been rude. Sometime after the first fifty times I saw the issue of “top-posting” being made an issue above the actual questions being asked I decided to go out to Wikipedia and read the rationale for this “rude” business so I could be a good citizen, to find that it isn’t any kind of Internet standard, it is an artifact from old Usenet days, and that while still the tradition on some mailing lists (like FFmpeg) that will get you flamed, it is not by any means the most common approach for replying on mailing lists or forums. If anything, it ignores the behavior of the most commonly used mail clients and also ignores what mobile devices do for purposes of efficiency, where users are encouraged to top-post. But it makes for a great way to be unkind to complete strangers, and make them feel stupid in front of everyone else if you can’t come up with an answer, don’t agree with their thoughts, are just generally annoyed by their questions, or derive some kind of satisfaction by putting others down. I’ve watched this happen weekly, if not daily, for a few years now on this mailing list, and it is totally unnecessary and unfortunate, and no doubt doesn’t contribute to a welcoming environment for questions, but one makes people reluctant to post. Go ahead and follow the rule…those have been the politics of the mailing list for the several years I’ve been on it. But for my part, if replying to me, feel free to top-post, bottom-post, interleave, whatever — I could care less. I’m interested in what you have to say, helping out if I can, and making a friend out of someone I didn’t know when I woke up this morning. Brad _______________________________________________ Libav-user mailing list [email protected] http://ffmpeg.org/mailman/listinfo/libav-user
