[OT] Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On Sun, Jun 19, 2005 at 12:29:06AM -0700, Karsten M. Self wrote: In math (or maths, ifs yous plurals yours words), it's *greatest* common denominator. ponder mmm, maths, short for mathematics whereas math is short for maths? Mathematics is plural like arithmetic is singular? /ponder Is 'math' used for maths only in America? -- Chris. == -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
Chris Bannister wrote: ponder mmm, maths, short for mathematics whereas math is short for maths? Mathematics is plural like arithmetic is singular? /ponder Is 'math' used for maths only in America? I'm in America (USA to be specific), and I avoid math whenever I can. It's calculators for me, whenever possible. :-) -- Kent -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
Kent West wrote: I'm in America (USA to be specific), and I avoid math whenever I can. It's calculators for me, whenever possible. :-) Is it bad of me that I avoid calculators whenever possible and instead go for a Python prompt? :D -- Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | main connection to the switchboard of souls. ---+- signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [OT] Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On Tue, Jun 21, 2005 at 09:41:02AM -0700, Steve Lamb wrote: Kent West wrote: I'm in America (USA to be specific), and I avoid math whenever I can. It's calculators for me, whenever possible. :-) Is it bad of me that I avoid calculators whenever possible and instead go for a Python prompt? :D What's wrong with bc? One of the things that first impressed me about Linux was that bc could calculate 2^(2^22) and the Windows calculator couldn't. I think, btw, that maths is used throughout the British Commonwealth, and that mathematics used to be a singular noun more often than not but is now usually plural. Likewise politics, economics and similar words. I wonder if this has something to do with the fact that Greek and Latin neuter plurals (such as mathematica) regularly take a singular verb? -- PJR :-) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
on Fri, Jun 10, 2005 at 09:09:25PM -0400, Patrick Wiseman ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: On 6/10/05, Carl Fink [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, Jun 10, 2005 at 12:46:20PM -0700, Caleb Walker wrote: Carl Fink wrote: Just out of curiosity: you do realize that LCD is an insult, right? What is LCD? Least Common Denominator. _Lowest_ Common Denominator where I grew up In math (or maths, ifs yous plurals yours words), it's *greatest* common denominator. The _least_ common denominator of any given value is of course, 1. The _greatest_ common denominator is that value which all entities have in common. It's a ceiling of compatibility, above which there isn't commonality. Common usage has reversed the term, for odd reasons. Those of us who do _not_ require information to be presented in linear order in order to process it are in a rather small minority, it seems, and so it would be pretty absurd for a forum like this to accommodate _us_. But I'm still a bit surprised that tech folks are so linear - The mmajor issue is that mixed-mode posting really *really* sucks. Inevitably: - ObAOL posts quoting 500+ lines of unnecessary context are made. - Different citation styles make it impossible to track who said what. Those ' ' markers aren't just there for decoration. - Tracking who's saying what in response to whom gets very difficult. Generally there's a total mash of text. My own response is to not participate in lists / groups in which this mode of communications is commonplace. It's too much work, s/n is way low, and the population tends not to be trainable. Peace. -- Karsten M. Self kmself@ix.netcom.comhttp://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What Part of Gestalt don't you understand? Sony-Betamax / did not rule on shifting to / ten million people. - Haiku Betamax signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Programming Backwards (was Re: Top posting (a different point of view))
On Fri, 2005-06-10 at 23:25 -0400, Hubert Chan wrote: --snip-- I program randomly. Err. That's random as opposed to sequentially; not as in I bang random keys on my keyboard and hope for the best. ;-) /me envisions an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters sitting in a building in Redmond with an M$ logo on the front... :) I write one function, then jump to another function, then decide to change something in the first function, start a third function, ... I do the same thing, but most of my coding nowadays is OO, so that's kind of the norm. At least I think it is... maybe it's not and I'm a crazy backwards coder too... hmm... -- Alex Malinovich Support Free Software, delete your Windows partition TODAY! Encrypted mail preferred. You can get my public key from any of the pgp.net keyservers. Key ID: A6D24837 signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [OT] Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On Sat, Jun 11, 2005 at 08:36:38PM +0100, Peter J Ross wrote:
Tom Waits.
On Thu, Jun 09, 2005 at 06:22:27PM -0500, John Carline wrote:
What a crock of snobbish BS!
snobbish
adj : befitting or characteristic of those who inclined to social
exclusiveness and who rebuff the advances of people
considered inferior [syn: {clannish}, {cliquish},
{clubby}, {snobby}]
Personally, I don't care where an individual posts. But, it would make
my reading/following of threads much easier if I didn't have to scroll
down to the bottom of post after post in a long string just to read the
one line added to the 200 I've already read.
So use the tab key (or whatever the equivalent is in your client for
skipping quoted text). You could also encourage people to delete
irrelevant quoted text when replying.
Unlike vi v. emacs or KDE v. Gnome, there's actually an RFC about this
one. It's a dead issue. If you don't conform, people will be less
liekly to reply to you.
Really? an RFC? Which one, and where might I find it?
-- hendrik
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Re: Programming Backwards (was Re: Top posting (a different point of view))
On Sun, Jun 12, 2005 at 11:26:47AM -0500, Alex Malinovich wrote: /me envisions an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters sitting in a building in Redmond with an M$ logo on the front... :) Well, infinite is probably a little on the high side, but... -- David Jardine Running Debian GNU/Linux and loving every minute of it. -L. von Sacher-M.(1835-1895) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [OT] Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On Sunday June 12 2005 10:10 am, Hendrik Boom wrote: Unlike vi v. emacs or KDE v. Gnome, there's actually an RFC about this one. It's a dead issue. If you don't conform, people will be less liekly to reply to you. Really? an RFC? Which one, and where might I find it? http://ursine.ca/Top_Posting#RFC_1855.C2.A0.28http%3A.2F.2Fursine.ca.2Fcgi-bin.2Fdwww.3Ftype.3Dfile.26location.3D.2Fusr.2Fshare.2Fdoc.2FRFC.2Ffor-your-information.2Frfc1855.txt.gz.29 -- Paul Johnson Email and Instant Messenger (Jabber): [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://ursine.ca/~baloo/ pgpfs09cm0CxK.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Programming Backwards (was Re: Top posting (a different point of view))
On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 22:51:51 -0400, you wrote: %On 6/10/05, John Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: % % Would you write programs backwards? I would hate to write a backwards % compiler to compile your backwards programs. % %Doesn't everyone write their programs backwards? Don't you _start_ at the end? % %I guess it depends on what you mean by backwards, but I think I do %actually write my programs backwards .. from how it will look to the %enduser. One of the problems with _lots_ of programs out there is %that they're _not _ written backwards in that sense. Well, I find that most C programs nowadays are written backwards : main() on top and functions below. Having learned C from KR, that's backwards for me. But the point is : I put up with it. No whining and no expectations that everyone will want to follow my preferences. Tolerance, dude. There's too much intolerance out there in the world today already. Ben
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
Roger B.A. Klorese wrote: Joe Potter wrote: You want to see the context. You want to see the flow of the discussion --- like we did years ago before you had to cave due to all the suites who can do no better. Sorry, but I'm not too slow to remember the substance of 95% of the conversations I have with my co-workers. We are talking about how one should post in this mail-list. We have a very high volume list, and most have other things to do besides read the list on a continual basis. So, post at the bottom and trim out the stuff that is not necessary to understanding your reply. Talk to your co-workers as you please. Gates is a cancer, and the after life will be warm in his case if there is justice. *plonk* Religious zealot. plonk ?? Did you get the part in Revenge of the Nerds, part 12? Or do you work for the cancer? -- Joe -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Programming Backwards (was Re: Top posting (a different point of view))
Ben wrote: Well, I find that most C programs nowadays are written backwards : main() on top and functions below. Having learned C from KR, that's backwards for me. But the point is : I put up with it. No whining and no expectations that everyone will want to follow my preferences. Tolerance, dude. There's too much intolerance out there in the world today already. Ben, blind tolerance is not always a good thing(tm). For example, I am very intolerant of the killing of innocent men, women and children by our military in foreign counties. I see no reason to tolerate the chicken-hawks who lied us into war and see dead kids as a necessary part of our safety. No, blind tolerance is not good. -- Joe -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On Saturday 11 June 2005 03.39, Paul Johnson wrote: On Friday June 10 2005 2:45 pm, Olle Eriksson wrote: More importantly, I think it would be difficult to use bottom-posting with html mail or rtf text or whatever it is called. Only in inadequate mailers. Mutt, gnus, kmail and likely most other mailers get it right. If your mailer can't quote properly on a markup message, this is a *BAD* bug and should be treated as such. Write a patch or bug your vendor (and refuse to pay/do business with them until they do what you want). That might work unless you are forced to use Lotus Notes or MS Outlook (like most people are, unfortunately), and as far as I know they don't handle it very well. And I doubt they would accept a patch from me. :-) Well, positioning and formatting can be easily handled as: * Images can be pointed to using footnotes[1] * _Underline_ * *bold* * /italic/ * And of course this list, which demonstrates bullets. Some MUAs properly understand these conventions and convert them to the appropriate formatting automagically. That sounds like something that could work.. KMail doesn't seem to do that though. And it will probably take a looong time until MS or Lotus decides to implement that. There are no alternative clients to Lotus Notes out there, is there? Sadly Lotus Notes doesn't seem to handle it very well, same as Outlook and the like. Why did you go with a solution that doesn't work? It works, but not as I would like it to. And if it was up to me... Regards -- Olle Eriksson [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.olle-eriksson.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[OT] Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
Tom Waits.
On Thu, Jun 09, 2005 at 06:22:27PM -0500, John Carline wrote:
What a crock of snobbish BS!
snobbish
adj : befitting or characteristic of those who inclined to social
exclusiveness and who rebuff the advances of people
considered inferior [syn: {clannish}, {cliquish},
{clubby}, {snobby}]
Personally, I don't care where an individual posts. But, it would make
my reading/following of threads much easier if I didn't have to scroll
down to the bottom of post after post in a long string just to read the
one line added to the 200 I've already read.
So use the tab key (or whatever the equivalent is in your client for
skipping quoted text). You could also encourage people to delete
irrelevant quoted text when replying.
Unlike vi v. emacs or KDE v. Gnome, there's actually an RFC about this
one. It's a dead issue. If you don't conform, people will be less
liekly to reply to you.
Which artist recorded _Swordfishtrombones_?
--
PJR :-)
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Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On Saturday June 11 2005 3:21 am, Joe Potter wrote: Roger B.A. Klorese wrote: Joe Potter wrote: We are talking about how one should post in this mail-list. We have a very high volume list, and most have other things to do besides read the list on a continual basis. I argue that this doesn't apply solely to this mailing list by a long shot, everybody has other things to do than read their email on a continual basis[1]. So, post at the bottom and trim out the stuff that is not necessary to understanding your reply. Is that really so much better than top-posting? Not even you are bottom-posting. http://ursine.ca/Top_Posting#Why_bottom-posting_also_isn.27t_the_answer Gates is a cancer, and the after life will be warm in his case if there is justice. *plonk* Religious zealot. plonk ?? Did you get the part in Revenge of the Nerds, part 12? He thinks he's cute and doesn't realize that plonking makes you look like a luser and generally defeats the point of filters. Filters work better when the targets don't know... [1] Well, most of the time, anyway. And even when you do have the time, usually there's something more productive or social to do. Unless you're a security guard on night shift at a hospital like I used to be, then that's pretty much all you do. And even then, top posting is still anti-social and obnoxious and you wish you had something better to do than read email all night every night... -- Paul Johnson Email and Instant Messenger (Jabber): [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://ursine.ca/~baloo/ pgpb7m8LIzCay.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On Saturday June 11 2005 12:07 pm, Olle Eriksson wrote: On Saturday 11 June 2005 03.39, Paul Johnson wrote: On Friday June 10 2005 2:45 pm, Olle Eriksson wrote: More importantly, I think it would be difficult to use bottom-posting with html mail or rtf text or whatever it is called. Only in inadequate mailers. Mutt, gnus, kmail and likely most other mailers get it right. If your mailer can't quote properly on a markup message, this is a *BAD* bug and should be treated as such. Write a patch or bug your vendor (and refuse to pay/do business with them until they do what you want). That might work unless you are forced to use Lotus Notes or MS Outlook (like most people are, unfortunately), and as far as I know they don't handle it very well. And I doubt they would accept a patch from me. :-) But third-party patches do exist. Just because your patch doesn't get accepted by the developers doesn't mean it's not the Right Thing if the developer's code doesn't work right and the refuse to fix it. It means the developers are badly misguided for whatever reason. OE Quotefix comes to mind as fixing the quoting problem for Outlook Express users. I believe there's a version of Quotefix for Outlook as well. Now that doesn't fix OE and Outlook's general wonkyness, but it does make your life easier if you're stuck using it. Well, positioning and formatting can be easily handled as: * Images can be pointed to using footnotes[1] * _Underline_ * *bold* * /italic/ * And of course this list, which demonstrates bullets. Some MUAs properly understand these conventions and convert them to the appropriate formatting automagically. That sounds like something that could work.. KMail doesn't seem to do that though. And it will probably take a looong time until MS or Lotus decides to implement that. There are no alternative clients to Lotus Notes out there, is there? Mozilla Thunderbird (even works in windows!)? kdepim? It's just a PIM with bad mail handling. -- Paul Johnson Email and Instant Messenger (Jabber): [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://ursine.ca/~baloo/ pgpU1TkQYDS8Y.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Programming Backwards (was Re: Top posting (a different point of view))
On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 22:51:51 -0400, Patrick Wiseman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I would hate to write a backwards compiler to compile your backwards programs. I think I do actually write my programs backwards .. from how it will look to the enduser. That's top down development vs. bottom up development. Using top down development, you never have any working code. Using bottom up development, you never solve the problem. -- A: Maybe because some people are too annoyed by top-posting. Q: Why do I not get an answer to my question(s)? A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Programming Backwards (was Re: Top posting (a different point of view))
On Sat, 11 Jun 2005 18:51:18 -0400 John Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think I do actually write my programs backwards .. from how it will look to the enduser. That's top down development vs. bottom up development. Using top down development, you never have any working code. Using bottom up development, you never solve the problem. Then there's this: Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it. Brian W. Kernighan Cybe R. Wizard -- Q: What's the difference between MicroSoft Windows and a virus? A: Apart from the fact that viruses are supported by their authors, use optimized, small code and usually perform well, none. Winduhs -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
Is it really necessary to get so exercised about top- vs bottom-posting? On 6/10/05, Hubert Chan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thu, 9 Jun 2005 20:10:35 -0400, Patrick Wiseman [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: [...] Do you see why it's nice to have the context provided immediately? With a bottom-posted message, I can quickly scan the original message and recall the context that I had read before. If I have to scroll to see the reply (which should be very rare, if quoted text is trimmed properly), I just have to hit [space] once or twice, and I can easily tell when I've reached the reply because my mail reader colours quoted text. My usual practice, actually, is to edit and interpolate, as if we were having a conversation. [...] Top posters also tend to have the horrible habit of not trimming the original message to only what's relevant... That's a different issue. ... I have my email ordered most-recent-first, and it saves me a _lot_ of time, whether the individual emails are top- or bottom-posted! ... I have my mailing lists threaded, and it's nice to be able to just read the first message in a thread and tell my mail reader that I'm not interested in the rest of the messages in the thread. I can't imagine how you would do that with most-recent-first. If you just read the latest message in a thread and find that you're not interested, you can't just kill the thread because you don't know if that message is off on a tangent, or if you really aren't interested in that thread. You do it your way. I'll do it mine. OK with you? I bottom post in this forum (mostly) because it's the norm here; etiquette probably requires that we accommodate the lowest common denominator. But don't get all righteous about it, for heaven's sake! Patrick
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On 6/9/05, Paul Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Thursday June 9 2005 5:10 pm, Patrick Wiseman wrote: I completely agree. Whoever (the attribution is not clear to me) wrote that crap about top posters vs bottom posters is an arrogant idiot. Processing information in reverse order is much more efficient Do you drive in reverse on the freeway, too? After all, doing it backwards is more efficient. Huh? People process information differently. Apparently, few find it more efficient to process it in reverse order. That being so, I'll continue to bottom post in this forum, if only to accommodate the LCD. Cheers Patrick
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On Thu, Jun 09, 2005 at 07:30:08PM -0500, Kent West wrote: John Carline wrote: Personally, I don't care where an individual posts. But, it would make my reading/following of threads much easier if I didn't have to scroll down to the bottom of post after post in a long string just to read the one line added to the 200 I've already read. And that's why trimming is also a recommended practice. The lack of trimming by posters to this list actually seems more out of hand than the top posting. Of the emails here that I skip without bothering to read, the majority are those which have so much quoted material that even on my (48 row) terminal there is no new text visible. If they have that problem, and a subject that isn't immediately interesting, they do not get read. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Paul Johnson wrote: On Thursday June 9 2005 5:10 pm, Patrick Wiseman wrote: I completely agree. Whoever (the attribution is not clear to me) wrote that crap about top posters vs bottom posters is an arrogant idiot. Processing information in reverse order is much more efficient Do you drive in reverse on the freeway, too? After all, doing it backwards is more efficient. Wait a minute, When you read a book. You start on page one and read right to the back of the book (Or bottom of the book) when you finish. Right? Same (should) go for emails, you start at the top with reading, and end up at the bottom where youre email answer begins. Is that not the best way of making it easier for other people to understand your email? Still, bottom posters may be fighting a lost battle. In all the companies i've worked for so far, there has not been a single company with a bottom post policy of any kind. These companies are usually the exchange server kind... Thanks, Mark p.s. Sorry Paul, for replying to you alone... -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFCqaGamHLz+zAEfmERAheAAJ9IPLicNSZXDA7EPhon5JaURdyKVACeKlpr KY+xpOWDFf07MNVkX61mdqY= =hadg -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
I agree with that point exactly. PS: 2 points for anybody that can figure out which point, or even which poster I'm agreeing with. (I really did try to stay out of this...) phil Mark said: Paul Johnson wrote: On Thursday June 9 2005 5:10 pm, Patrick Wiseman wrote: I completely agree. Whoever (the attribution is not clear to me) wrote that crap about top posters vs bottom posters is an arrogant idiot. Processing information in reverse order is much more efficient Do you drive in reverse on the freeway, too? After all, doing it backwards is more efficient. Wait a minute, When you read a book. You start on page one and read right to the back of the book (Or bottom of the book) when you finish. Right? Same (should) go for emails, you start at the top with reading, and end up at the bottom where youre email answer begins. Is that not the best way of making it easier for other people to understand your email? Still, bottom posters may be fighting a lost battle. In all the companies i've worked for so far, there has not been a single company with a bottom post policy of any kind. These companies are usually the exchange server kind... Thanks, Mark p.s. Sorry Paul, for replying to you alone... -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On 6/10/05, Phil Dyer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I agree with that point exactly. PS: 2 points for anybody that can figure out which point, or even which poster I'm agreeing with. (I really did try to stay out of this...) phil Mark said: Paul Johnson wrote: On Thursday June 9 2005 5:10 pm, Patrick Wiseman wrote: I completely agree. Whoever (the attribution is not clear to me) wrote that crap about top posters vs bottom posters is an arrogant idiot. Processing information in reverse order is much more efficient Do you drive in reverse on the freeway, too? After all, doing it backwards is more efficient. Wait a minute, When you read a book. You start on page one and read right to the back of the book (Or bottom of the book) when you finish. Right? Same (should) go for emails, you start at the top with reading, and end up at the bottom where youre email answer begins. Is that not the best way of making it easier for other people to understand your email? Still, bottom posters may be fighting a lost battle. In all the companies i've worked for so far, there has not been a single company with a bottom post policy of any kind. These companies are usually the exchange server kind... Thanks, Mark p.s. Sorry Paul, for replying to you alone... -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] This whole thing has brought up such a great feature of gmail - quoted text is hidden away until you want to see it. I can't even tell the difference between bottom posting and top posting most of the time. :D
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
I'm an incurable bottom-poster; q.v. On Fri, Jun 10, 2005 at 04:20:11PM +0200, Mark wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Paul Johnson wrote: On Thursday June 9 2005 5:10 pm, Patrick Wiseman wrote: I completely agree. Whoever (the attribution is not clear to me) wrote that crap about top posters vs bottom posters is an arrogant idiot. Processing information in reverse order is much more efficient Do you drive in reverse on the freeway, too? After all, doing it backwards is more efficient. Wait a minute, When you read a book. You start on page one and read right to the back of the book (Or bottom of the book) when you finish. Right? Same (should) go for emails, you start at the top with reading, and end up at the bottom where youre email answer begins. Is that not the best way of making it easier for other people to understand your email? Still, bottom posters may be fighting a lost battle. In all the companies i've worked for so far, there has not been a single company with a bottom post policy of any kind. These companies are usually the exchange server kind... Thanks, Mark Conflicting needs: * to have all the quotes and replies in textual order, so you can read it through in context (especially important for those reading an archive, or jumping into an ongoing conversation) * to see the reply first (for those who have just finished reading the previous message) It seems this is a problem resolvable by technology. Set the mail reader to start a message display at the bottom of the message. Does anyone know a mail reader that does this? -- hendrik -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On Fri, Jun 10, 2005 at 10:32:04AM -0400, Phil Dyer wrote: I agree with that point exactly. PS: 2 points for anybody that can figure out which point, or even which poster I'm agreeing with. I think the point you agree with is both point. -- hendrik P.S. What is the difference between a duck? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On Friday June 10 2005 8:02 am, Hendrik Boom wrote: It seems this is a problem resolvable by technology. Set the mail reader to start a message display at the bottom of the message. Does anyone know a mail reader that does this? gnus fixes broken quoting for you on reply. Make top posters quote correctly after the fact! -- Paul Johnson Email and Instant Messenger (Jabber): [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://ursine.ca/~baloo/ pgpdljJvLxQ1i.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
Phil Dyer wrote: I agree with that point exactly. PS: 2 points for anybody that can figure out which point, or even which poster I'm agreeing with. (I really did try to stay out of this...) phil I get no points at all as it is not worth trying to figure out what the point was. That, of course, is the main point you made. I put all this in the lap of Bill Gates --- the miserable ass. He is never happy unless he is destroying some standard and replacing it with crap of some kind. --- Joe -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On 6/10/05, Hendrik Boom [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: * to see the reply first (for those who have just finished reading the previous message) It seems this is a problem resolvable by technology. Set the mail reader to start a message display at the bottom of the message. This doesn't work well if you have a long response, not because the responder failed to properly trim the message they are responding to, but simply that they added a lot of information. The resolution to the problem is usually a matter of trimming irrelevent material from the quote. That said, the mutt mail client has options to skip past blocks of quoted content and to hide quoted content entirely (of course this requires that the responder use the standard quoting technique of interleaved/bottom posting and indenting quoted material with greater than characters). -- David Dorward http://dorward.me.ukhttp://blog.dorward.me.uk
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
Joe Potter wrote: That, of course, is the main point you made. I put all this in the lap of Bill Gates --- the miserable ass. He is never happy unless he is destroying some standard and replacing it with crap of some kind. Outlook does it this way not to be contrary, but for an obvious reason: it works better for the people who use it. If you're involved in a discussion, and you're tracking it all -- because if you don't you're fired -- you want to see the most up-to-date addition to the discussion, and for the 5% of the time you need reminding, you can scroll down. The immediate previous bit will probably remind you, and if not, the bit before that, etc. It's much more useful for that sort of discussion than bottom-posting. And I'm not speaking as a Windows-brainwashed suit -- I've been using Unix tools since 1984 and email since 1975. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 09:09:26 -0400, Patrick Wiseman [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: My usual practice, actually, is to edit and interpolate, as if we were having a conversation. (Did you mean interleave rather than interpolate?) Yes, that is the way things should be. Anyone who bottom posts without appropriate trimming or posts just a big block of text without proper interleaving also should be taught how to reply correctly. ... I have my email ordered most-recent-first, and it saves me a _lot_ of time, whether the individual emails are top- or bottom-posted! ... I have my mailing lists threaded, and it's nice to be able to just read the first message in a thread and tell my mail reader that I'm not interested in the rest of the messages in the thread. I can't imagine how you would do that with most-recent-first. If you just read the latest message in a thread and find that you're not interested, you can't just kill the thread because you don't know if that message is off on a tangent, or if you really aren't interested in that thread. You do it your way. I'll do it mine. OK with you? Sure. I just wrote what I did because you brought up how you preferred your way and that other people should try it, and I just explained why I like my way. I really couldn't care less how you read your email. I bottom post in this forum (mostly) because it's the norm here; etiquette probably requires that we accommodate the lowest common denominator. Sure. I'm not on any lists where top-posting is the norm, but when I correspond with other people on a personal basis, where the thread has no branches, and so it's easy to keep track of the conversation, I tend to write like a regular letter -- the pen and paper kind. (Why bother keeping the context at all when the recipient already knows it?) But don't get all righteous about it, for heaven's sake! I don't believe I was. I was just trying to give reasons for why I think that top-posting (in a mailing list context) is not a good thing to do. -- Hubert Chan [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.uhoreg.ca/ PGP/GnuPG key: 1024D/124B61FA Fingerprint: 96C5 012F 5F74 A5F7 1FF7 5291 AF29 C719 124B 61FA Key available at wwwkeys.pgp.net. Encrypted e-mail preferred. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On 10/06/05 16:02nbsp;Hendrik Boom wrote: It seems this is a problem resolvable by technology. Set the mail reader to start a message display at the bottom of the message. Does anyone know a mail reader that does this? The Mozilla folks may well be persuaded to implement this for Thunderbird (I wonder if it's on their wishlist). There is a similar feature in the Java Eclipse IDE called 'folding' with which code that you don't want to see (configurable) is 'folded' out of sight with only a line showing across the screen. Click on the line and the hidden code unfolds. I didn't read the whole of this thread, so someone may well have said that already. If so, sorry. So, what is the difference between a duck, Hendrik? It better be good. ;) Adam -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On Fri, Jun 10, 2005 at 06:57:36PM +0100, Adam Hardy wrote: So, what is the difference between a duck, Hendrik? It better be good. ;) Adam One of the joys of age. You can recycle jokes from fifty years ago, and you find new people to tell them to! This one has a tradidional answer: One of its legs is both the same. -- hendrik -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On Friday 10 June 2005 12:30 pm, Hubert Chan wrote: snip I don't believe I was. I was just trying to give reasons for why I think that top-posting (in a mailing list context) is not a good thing to do. I haven't been keeping track of who said what in which post, so I don't know if I responded to you before. I do have to say I'd like to thank you for the above statement. The biggest reason I've responded as much as I have is because the patter *I* perceive is that those who speak against top posting seem to speak with an almost violent passion, almost as if top posting is a sin and those who do it should be cast forever into the pit of fire and damnation. I don't know if anyone has noticed that I don't top post. (Actually, I might -- if I'm responding with a quick Thank you, I may put it at the top. If a post solves the problem, I might say, in one line, 'That does the job.' Usually I'll do this when there is a lot of material in the post I'm replying to, and it describes the whole problem and solution. I figure that way, the response is clear and easy to see without scrolling and if someone finds that particular post later, they know it solves the problem and all the details are in one place.) I do understand that for most people on most lists, bottom posting or inline posting is a preferred method. I accept that. I also accept that what works for one does not work for all, and what works for many can be difficult for others. In other words, while I don't top post, I see no reason to be critical of those who do, and I certainly see no reason for the violent reactions to those who are open minded enough to not judge top posters. I'm glad you not only shared your opinion and clarified here that it is what you think. You know what I think and, since I think Kosh was right and Truth is a 3 edged sword, I think somewhere between what I think and what you think is the Truth. Hal -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On Fri, Jun 10, 2005 at 09:13:05AM -0400, Patrick Wiseman wrote: People process information differently. Apparently, few find it more efficient to process it in reverse order. That being so, I'll continue to bottom post in this forum, if only to accommodate the LCD. Just out of curiosity: you do realize that LCD is an insult, right? -- Carl Fink [EMAIL PROTECTED] If you attempt to fix something that isn't broken, it will be. -Bruce Tognazzini -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: RIPEMD160 On Fri, Jun 10, 2005 at 02:17:48 PM -0400, Hal Vaughan wrote: I don't know if anyone has noticed that I don't top post. (Actually, I might -- if I'm responding with a quick Thank you, I may put it at the top. If a post solves the problem, I might say, in one line, 'That does the job.' While I can perhaps understand posting a That does the job message for archival purposes. I really don't understand why anyone would send a post containing thank you, I agree, 'no, yes, Etc. to a list of thousands. These one-liners contribute nothing but usually have a large block of post following them wasting space and time. I'm not saying you shouldn't be thankful, agreeable or whatever, but does the world need to read it. [snip] In other words, while I don't top post, I see no reason to be critical of those who do, and I certainly see no reason for the violent reactions to those who are open minded enough to not judge top posters. Yehaw! We've had our Hitler reference, now we're goint to get philisophical. Next will come a few dozen messages about ending this horible off topic thread. Isn't debian-user fun. - -- Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it. - Brian W. Kernighan Thomas Stivers e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFCqfGy5JK61UXLur0RA0gjAJ9co4ejFEHjIySv4ABNtdMAixOFCQCfeFle 3MeayhJwZzOiWmIrhngf0NE= =TvRS -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On Friday 10 June 2005 04:01 pm, Thomas Stivers wrote: snip While I can perhaps understand posting a That does the job message for archival purposes. I really don't understand why anyone would send a post containing thank you, I agree, 'no, yes, Etc. to a list of thousands. These one-liners contribute nothing but usually have a large block of post following them wasting space and time. I'm not saying you shouldn't be thankful, agreeable or whatever, but does the world need to read it. I can see various reasons for the different comments you mentioned, depending on the context of the thread, it might help if someone involved makes it clear s/he agrees with a particular piece of advice or feels it is correct. A no could have a similar useful message. A thank you could also be, aside from just plain courtesy, a way to indicate that a solution works, but that may be getting nit-picky on phrasing, since it would indicate the same as It works! Hal -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
Carl Fink wrote: Just out of curiosity: you do realize that LCD is an insult, right? What is LCD? -- Caleb Walker Top Gun Drywall Supply, Inc. 559-276-5161 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On Fri, Jun 10, 2005 at 12:46:20PM -0700, Caleb Walker wrote: Carl Fink wrote: Just out of curiosity: you do realize that LCD is an insult, right? What is LCD? Least Common Denominator. -- Carl Fink [EMAIL PROTECTED] If you attempt to fix something that isn't broken, it will be. -Bruce Tognazzini -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
Carl Fink wrote: On Fri, Jun 10, 2005 at 12:46:20PM -0700, Caleb Walker wrote: Carl Fink wrote: Just out of curiosity: you do realize that LCD is an insult, right? What is LCD? Least Common Denominator. I thought it was Last Chick Drunk. --Joe -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
Roger B.A. Klorese wrote: Joe Potter wrote: That, of course, is the main point you made. I put all this in the lap of Bill Gates --- the miserable ass. He is never happy unless he is destroying some standard and replacing it with crap of some kind. Outlook does it this way not to be contrary, but for an obvious reason: it works better for the people who use it. If you're involved in a discussion, and you're tracking it all -- because if you don't you're fired -- you want to see ... You want to see the context. You want to see the flow of the discussion --- like we did years ago before you had to cave due to all the suites who can do no better. Gates is a cancer, and the after life will be warm in his case if there is justice. -- Joe -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On Fri, 2005-06-10 at 17:17 -0400, Joe Potter wrote: --snip-- You want to see the context. You want to see the flow of the discussion --- like we did years ago before you had to cave due to all the suites who can do no better. Gates is a cancer, and the after life will be warm in his case if there is justice. Amen to that! I feel like contributing to chemotherapy research right now! :) -- Alex Malinovich Support Free Software, delete your Windows partition TODAY! Encrypted mail preferred. You can get my public key from any of the pgp.net keyservers. Key ID: A6D24837 signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On Friday 10 June 2005 17.46, Roger B.A. Klorese wrote: Joe Potter wrote: That, of course, is the main point you made. I put all this in the lap of Bill Gates --- the miserable ass. He is never happy unless he is destroying some standard and replacing it with crap of some kind. Outlook does it this way not to be contrary, but for an obvious reason: it works better for the people who use it. If you're involved in a discussion, and you're tracking it all -- because if you don't you're fired -- you want to see the most up-to-date addition to the discussion, and for the 5% of the time you need reminding, you can scroll down. The immediate previous bit will probably remind you, and if not, the bit before that, etc. It's much more useful for that sort of discussion than bottom-posting. And I'm not speaking as a Windows-brainwashed suit -- I've been using Unix tools since 1984 and email since 1975. More importantly, I think it would be difficult to use bottom-posting with html mail or rtf text or whatever it is called. And while plain text is better in most situations, I have to admit there are situations where formatted text can be useful. For example, sometimes you want to include an image at a certain position in the e-mail, underline, make text bold, color a certain text, include links without cluttering the text with long http addresses. I use that when I paste code snippets and colored code diffs, include links to defect reports etc in my daily work. And I suppose we shouldn't forget all the other non-technical people who want to format their e-mails with background images and fancy type faces. Anyway, finding a technical solution that allows that to be combined with bottom-posting would probably be difficult to implement, although I would love to see it. Sadly Lotus Notes doesn't seem to handle it very well, same as Outlook and the like. -- Olle Eriksson [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.olle-eriksson.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
I think that one of my personal strengths is my ability to objectively listen to both sides of an argument. But as much as I try, I can't understand bottom posters. How are you reading lists? I use an email client (thunderbird). When I read a thread, I start at the beginning. Sometimes interleaved posts are useful if there are many points. Otherwise I have no problem following a thread of top posts. No one leaves the entire thread intact as one reply follows another. So I think the argument of context is bogus. Sometimes you just have to look back through the thread, but if you have been following the thread, you just read the new posts and it doesn't matter if it is at the beginning or the end. The new post is more important and therefore should come first. If you can scroll down to read a new post, why can't you scroll down to find the context when you are confused? Why do you always want to scroll down when you could just scroll down in the rare instance of having missed something? Bottoms are just trying to impose Victorian-esque social protocols on a free-form medium. Give it up! Olle Eriksson wrote: On Friday 10 June 2005 17.46, Roger B.A. Klorese wrote: Joe Potter wrote: That, of course, is the main point you made. I put all this in the lap of Bill Gates --- the miserable ass. He is never happy unless he is destroying some standard and replacing it with crap of some kind. Outlook does it this way not to be contrary, but for an obvious reason: it works better for the people who use it. If you're involved in a discussion, and you're tracking it all -- because if you don't you're fired -- you want to see the most up-to-date addition to the discussion, and for the 5% of the time you need reminding, you can scroll down. The immediate previous bit will probably remind you, and if not, the bit before that, etc. It's much more useful for that sort of discussion than bottom-posting. And I'm not speaking as a Windows-brainwashed suit -- I've been using Unix tools since 1984 and email since 1975. More importantly, I think it would be difficult to use bottom-posting with html mail or rtf text or whatever it is called. And while plain text is better in most situations, I have to admit there are situations where formatted text can be useful. For example, sometimes you want to include an image at a certain position in the e-mail, underline, make text bold, color a certain text, include links without cluttering the text with long http addresses. I use that when I paste code snippets and colored code diffs, include links to defect reports etc in my daily work. And I suppose we shouldn't forget all the other non-technical people who want to format their e-mails with background images and fancy type faces. Anyway, finding a technical solution that allows that to be combined with bottom-posting would probably be difficult to implement, although I would love to see it. Sadly Lotus Notes doesn't seem to handle it very well, same as Outlook and the like. -- ~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~` Michael Z Daryabeygi Database Applications Developer Sligo Computer Services Co-op www.sligowebworks.com 301.270.9673 x 304 ~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~` -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.323 / Virus Database: 267.6.7 - Release Date: 6/10/2005 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On Fri, Jun 10, 2005 at 11:45:43PM +0200, Olle Eriksson wrote: More importantly, I think it would be difficult to use bottom-posting with html mail or rtf text or whatever it is called. And while plain text is better in most situations, I have to admit there are situations where formatted text can be useful. For example, sometimes you want to include an image at a certain position in the e-mail, underline, make text bold, color a certain text, include links without cluttering the text with long http addresses. I use that when I paste code snippets and colored code diffs, include links to defect reports etc in my daily work. And I suppose we shouldn't forget all the other non-technical people who want to format their e-mails with background images and fancy type faces. Anyway, finding a technical solution that allows that to be combined with bottom-posting would probably be difficult to implement, although I would love to see it. Sadly Lotus Notes doesn't seem to handle it very well, same as Outlook and the like. Check this out: - *bold* - _underline_ - image: .''`. : :' : `. `' `- Figure 1: High resolution, photo-realistic Debian swirl. OK. So ASCII art doesn't quite cut it. - /italic/ - referencing [0] a URL without clutter -Roberto [0] http://example.com/examples_of_flexible_text_email.php -- Roberto C. Sanchez http://familiasanchez.net/~sanchezr pgpZth7y0xE2W.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On 6/10/05, Carl Fink [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri, Jun 10, 2005 at 12:46:20PM -0700, Caleb Walker wrote: Carl Fink wrote: Just out of curiosity: you do realize that LCD is an insult, right? What is LCD? Least Common Denominator. _Lowest_ Common Denominator where I grew up, and, whether it's an insult or not, _accommodating_ the LCD is not only polite but necessary. Actually, I was rather pissed off when I posted that (people get too damned righteous about bottom vs top) and so, yes, I _intended_ it as an insult. So, if anyone was insulted, my apologies. There's nothing lower about processing information linearly. Those of us who do _not_ require information to be presented in linear order in order to process it are in a rather small minority, it seems, and so it would be pretty absurd for a forum like this to accommodate _us_. But I'm still a bit surprised that tech folks are so linear - it's only in tech forums that I encounter this insistence on bottom posting - at least where I work, tech people are among the smartest I know, and so I would expect more lateral, reverse, circular, etc., and less vertical information processing. But I also code a good bit, and appreciate the need to do that in an orderly (essentially vertical) way. No offense intended to anyone. So if offense was taken, apologies. Patrick
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 21:09:25 -0400, Patrick Wiseman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But I also code a good bit, and appreciate the need to do that in an orderly (essentially vertical) way Programmers know that sequence is the first of three fundamental elements of programming. I'm still a bit surprised that tech folks are so linear Well since sequence is the first of three fundamental elements of programming, why would that surprise you? people get too damned righteous about bottom vs top Would you write programs backwards? I would hate to write a backwards compiler to compile your backwards programs. -- A: Maybe because some people are too annoyed by top-posting. Q: Why do I not get an answer to my question(s)? A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 17:56:04 -0400, Michael Z Daryabeygi [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: [...] No one leaves the entire thread intact as one reply follows another. So I think the argument of context is bogus. Long threads with multiple branches (like this one). You reach the end of one branch, and go to the next branch. Now you're lost. Or reading going through the thread as it develops (like this one). I post a message, read the rest of the messages on the list, wait a little while, then check for new messages. If I find a new message in this thread, I'll need context, because there were 20 messages the last time I checked the thread, and I don't know which message is being replied to. Sometimes you just have to look back through the thread, but if you have been following the thread, you just read the new posts and it doesn't matter if it is at the beginning or the end. Then why bother quote the original message at all? Did you really have to include the text of the last three messages? The new post is more important and therefore should come first. If you can scroll down to read a new post, why can't you scroll down to find the context when you are confused? Because sometimes it's not clear which particular point is being replied to. Besides, I don't want to be confused in the first place. Why do you always want to scroll down when you could just scroll down in the rare instance of having missed something? If you trim properly, you shouldn't need to scroll down (much -- at most one screenful, depending on how big your screen is). -- Hubert Chan [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.uhoreg.ca/ PGP/GnuPG key: 1024D/124B61FA Fingerprint: 96C5 012F 5F74 A5F7 1FF7 5291 AF29 C719 124B 61FA Key available at wwwkeys.pgp.net. Encrypted e-mail preferred. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On Friday June 10 2005 8:46 am, Roger B.A. Klorese wrote: Joe Potter wrote: That, of course, is the main point you made. I put all this in the lap of Bill Gates --- the miserable ass. He is never happy unless he is destroying some standard and replacing it with crap of some kind. Outlook does it this way not to be contrary, but for an obvious reason: it works better for the people who use it. That falsely assumes that the Halloween Memos weren't ever written. Microsoft so much as admits that it pulls stunts like this deliberately to be contrary and lock people in to their product. It's all about lock-in, top posters swallowed the hook. If you're involved in a discussion, and you're tracking it all -- because if you don't you're fired -- you want to see the most up-to-date addition to the discussion, and for the 5% of the time you need reminding, you can scroll down. That falsely assumes that people track a very small amount of email and have the mental memory of your average modern hard drive. In the real world, people get vastly different volumes of email. If your message doesn't make sense or if someone has to spend a shitload of time sifting through it to regain context for that thread, you're wasting more of someone else's time to figure out what's so important that you're threatening a job over an illegible message than it would have taken you to do it right the first time. In email (like any other form of communication), it is the absolute duty of the sender to make sure their message is clear and understandable, not the recipient to pick it apart and make an assumption on what you're talking backwards about because you couldn't effectively communicate. The immediate previous bit will probably remind you, and if not, the bit before that, etc. It's much more useful for that sort of discussion than bottom-posting. And I'm not speaking as a Windows-brainwashed suit -- I've been using Unix tools since 1984 and email since 1975. Bottom posting also isn't the answer, its just as bad as top posting for being a waste of bandwidth and context killer. Quoted material is provided by your client so that you may properly frame your response with it. Not *that* hard to figure out... -- Paul Johnson Email and Instant Messenger (Jabber): [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://ursine.ca/~baloo/ pgpCTUlglzPTJ.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On Friday June 10 2005 2:45 pm, Olle Eriksson wrote: More importantly, I think it would be difficult to use bottom-posting with html mail or rtf text or whatever it is called. Only in inadequate mailers. Mutt, gnus, kmail and likely most other mailers get it right. If your mailer can't quote properly on a markup message, this is a *BAD* bug and should be treated as such. Write a patch or bug your vendor (and refuse to pay/do business with them until they do what you want). And while plain text is better in most situations, I have to admit there are situations where formatted text can be useful. For example, sometimes you want to include an image at a certain position in the e-mail, underline, make text bold, color a certain text, include links without cluttering the text with long http addresses. Well, positioning and formatting can be easily handled as: * Images can be pointed to using footnotes[1] * _Underline_ * *bold* * /italic/ * And of course this list, which demonstrates bullets. Some MUAs properly understand these conventions and convert them to the appropriate formatting automagically. Try writing a patch or harassing your vendor (again, if they're not giving you what you want, why are you paying them?). Sadly Lotus Notes doesn't seem to handle it very well, same as Outlook and the like. Why did you go with a solution that doesn't work? [1] Kinda like this. Then you can make your URLs as long as you want down at the end where they're out of the way. -- Paul Johnson Email and Instant Messenger (Jabber): [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://ursine.ca/~baloo/ pgphcTTMDrxmD.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
Learn to format your posts properly. Paragraphs start with an empty line and should be written in conversational order like in normal written English. See standard RFC1855. On Friday June 10 2005 2:56 pm, Michael Z Daryabeygi wrote: I think that one of my personal strengths is my ability to objectively listen to both sides of an argument. But as much as I try, I can't understand bottom posters. Neither can I, they're just as wrong as top-posters. No one leaves the entire thread intact as one reply follows another. But you just did! So I think the argument of context is bogus. At least you're good at providing some irony... -- Paul Johnson Email and Instant Messenger (Jabber): [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://ursine.ca/~baloo/ pgpLtRTH7LaTO.pgp Description: PGP signature
Programming Backwards (was Re: Top posting (a different point of view))
On 6/10/05, John Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Would you write programs backwards? I would hate to write a backwards compiler to compile your backwards programs. Doesn't everyone write their programs backwards? Don't you _start_ at the end? I guess it depends on what you mean by backwards, but I think I do actually write my programs backwards .. from how it will look to the enduser. One of the problems with _lots_ of programs out there is that they're _not _ written backwards in that sense. Then again, I do have a tendency to read Dr. Dobb's Journal from Swaine's Flames to the front! Patrick
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On 6/10/05, Paul Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Learn to format your posts properly. Paragraphs start with an empty line and should be written in conversational order like in normal written English. See standard RFC1855. Standard, huh? It's called Netiquette _Guidelines_. And I quote: This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo does not specify an Internet _standard_ of any kind. (My emphasis.) And it's dated October 1995!! Ten years in this environment is a century or more anywhere else. Look, I would prefer that people behave well too (interpolated replies with judicious edits are better than un- or badly-edited top- or bottom-posted ones) but don't pretend that there's an effing rule about it! People will post as they do, and those of us who've been around since that RFC was issued will deal with it as we will. Apparently some of us will need to up the dose of BP medication. Patrick
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
Joe Potter wrote: You want to see the context. You want to see the flow of the discussion --- like we did years ago before you had to cave due to all the suites who can do no better. Sorry, but I'm not too slow to remember the substance of 95% of the conversations I have with my co-workers. Gates is a cancer, and the after life will be warm in his case if there is justice. *plonk* Religious zealot. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Programming Backwards (was Re: Top posting (a different point of view))
On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 22:51:51 -0400, Patrick Wiseman [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: On 6/10/05, John Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Would you write programs backwards? I would hate to write a backwards compiler to compile your backwards programs. Doesn't everyone write their programs backwards? Don't you _start_ at the end? I program randomly. Err. That's random as opposed to sequentially; not as in I bang random keys on my keyboard and hope for the best. ;-) I write one function, then jump to another function, then decide to change something in the first function, start a third function, ... It's also how I generally write emails. Write one paragraph, start writing the next paragraph, change something in the first paragraph, add something between the paragraphs, ... Maybe I have attention deficit dissor... Oh, look, a bird! However, how I *write* programs or emails is different from how I *present* them. Even though they are written randomly, they are presented in a (hopefully) well laid out, sequential manner; I don't have random thoughts scattered all over the place. I would not expect anyone to be able to follow my emails if they read them in the order that I wrote them. [...] Then again, I do have a tendency to read Dr. Dobb's Journal from Swaine's Flames to the front! Yeah, I do that too sometimes with various publications. Then again, since most of the articles stand on their own, it doesn't really matter what order you read them in. -- Hubert Chan [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.uhoreg.ca/ PGP/GnuPG key: 1024D/124B61FA Fingerprint: 96C5 012F 5F74 A5F7 1FF7 5291 AF29 C719 124B 61FA Key available at wwwkeys.pgp.net. Encrypted e-mail preferred. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
What a crock of snobbish BS!
snobbish
adj : befitting or characteristic of those who inclined to social
exclusiveness and who rebuff the advances of people
considered inferior [syn: {clannish}, {cliquish},
{clubby}, {snobby}]
Personally, I don't care where an individual posts. But, it would make
my reading/following of threads much easier if I didn't have to scroll
down to the bottom of post after post in a long string just to read the
one line added to the 200 I've already read.
It would be much better added at the top, where it pops onto the screen
immediately and I can go on to the next post.
John
Alex Malinovich wrote:
On Thu, 2005-06-09 at 22:06 +0100, Graham Smith wrote:
--snip--
PS Have you noticed that there aren't many people who are top posting
zealots? I wonder why. Maybe tops posters are just more relaxed and
chilled out people. :o)
I would argue that top-posters fall into the same category as most users
of proprietary software. They are too lazy expend a bit of effort to
benefit their fellow man. Bottom-posting makes reading easier for those
who haven't followed an entire thread. Much in the same way that users
of proprietary software are too lazy to find, support, or write a free
alternative that would benefit all of mankind.
As a side note, since I got on the subject of users of proprietary
software, I've noticed that there's an interesting distinction between
people who use free (As in speech) software and people who use
proprietary software. People who use proprietary software have a view of
the world which stresses Me! Me! Me!. People who use free software
generally view the world in terms of We!.
So a top-poster is concerned about him or herself not doing extra work.
A bottom-poster is concerned with improving the quality of reading for
others.
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Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
I completely agree. Whoever (the attribution is not clear to me)
wrote that crap about top posters vs bottom posters is an arrogant
idiot. Processing information in reverse order is much more
efficient. Unfortunately, lots of people just don't process
information that way.
I know bottom-posting is the preferred protocol here, and so I usually
respect it (this exception is just to make a point). But just try the
other way (in a forum where it's accepted), and I think you might find
you like it. I have my email ordered most-recent-first, and it saves
me a _lot_ of time, whether the individual emails are top- or
bottom-posted! I'm actually a bit surprised that tech people
generally prefer bottom posting; on all the academic lists I'm on, top
posting is the norm, and it's _not_ because those people are stupid or
lazy or self-absorbed.
Patrick
On 6/9/05, John Carline [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
What a crock of snobbish BS!
snobbish
adj : befitting or characteristic of those who inclined to social
exclusiveness and who rebuff the advances of people
considered inferior [syn: {clannish}, {cliquish},
{clubby}, {snobby}]
Personally, I don't care where an individual posts. But, it would make
my reading/following of threads much easier if I didn't have to scroll
down to the bottom of post after post in a long string just to read the
one line added to the 200 I've already read.
It would be much better added at the top, where it pops onto the screen
immediately and I can go on to the next post.
John
Alex Malinovich wrote:
On Thu, 2005-06-09 at 22:06 +0100, Graham Smith wrote:
--snip--
PS Have you noticed that there aren't many people who are top posting
zealots? I wonder why. Maybe tops posters are just more relaxed and
chilled out people. :o)
I would argue that top-posters fall into the same category as most users
of proprietary software. They are too lazy expend a bit of effort to
benefit their fellow man. Bottom-posting makes reading easier for those
who haven't followed an entire thread. Much in the same way that users
of proprietary software are too lazy to find, support, or write a free
alternative that would benefit all of mankind.
As a side note, since I got on the subject of users of proprietary
software, I've noticed that there's an interesting distinction between
people who use free (As in speech) software and people who use
proprietary software. People who use proprietary software have a view of
the world which stresses Me! Me! Me!. People who use free software
generally view the world in terms of We!.
So a top-poster is concerned about him or herself not doing extra work.
A bottom-poster is concerned with improving the quality of reading for
others.
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Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On Thu, Jun 09, 2005 at 08:10:35PM -0400, Patrick Wiseman wrote: I know bottom-posting is the preferred protocol here, and so I usually respect it (this exception is just to make a point). But just try the other way (in a forum where it's accepted), and I think you might find you like it ... How to put this, how to put this No. No indeed. In fact there are times when top-posting is appropriate, but mailing lists and Usenet are NOT on that list. In either case, you can't assume that everyone reading the message (including people reading an archived copy on the Web two years later) has read the whole thread and doesn't need context. Note that bottom-posting most definitely requires quote-trimming, as others have said and demonstrated. -- Carl Fink [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jabootu's Minister of Proofreading http://www.jabootu.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
John Carline wrote: Personally, I don't care where an individual posts. But, it would make my reading/following of threads much easier if I didn't have to scroll down to the bottom of post after post in a long string just to read the one line added to the 200 I've already read. And that's why trimming is also a recommended practice. No need to quote 200 lines of irrelevant material; trim out the unnecessary stuff. This is also a consideration towards those who have to pay for their internet access per byte. Why are you forcing them to spend their money on six copies of the same 7-line signature and 17-line disclaimer (and don't even get me started on disclaimers) just to read a one-line reply to a one-line question? Regarding top-posting, that's fine in some situations, but in a situation like an email list, it's not just you and one or two others reading the material, and making sense of it because all of you can remember the context. It may be that in six months someone is trying to find an answer in the archives, and top-posted messages turn into spaghetti code. Remember how all your programming classes and peers reiterated over and over that spaghetti code is a bad thing? Same thing in email threads, particularly in archives. Top-posting, and lack of trimming, often results in an ugly mess. -- Kent -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
Top posting considered harmful. http://ursine.ca/Top_Posting On Thursday June 9 2005 4:22 pm, John Carline wrote: But, it would make my reading/following of threads much easier if I didn't have to scroll down to the bottom of post after post in a long string just to read the one line added to the 200 I've already read. Part of proper quoting is removing the parts that you're *not* responding to. Failing to remove irrelevant text is a function of poor netiquette encouraged by top posting. Search Google Groups and observe how people very rarely included the entire prior post or top posted before Microsoft's top-post-by-default clients hit the net. -- Paul Johnson Email and Instant Messenger (Jabber): [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://ursine.ca/~baloo/ pgpqKMMuOp3WI.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
(I haven't quoted anything here because this isn't a response to what Carl wrote, just here because it's the end of the thread at this point in time) I must say, this thread has to be one of the most well structured and easy to read in my whole experience of reading a public mailing list. If only all the posts here were of this quality the world would be a much better place. That said, I too agree that top bottom posting both have their own place, and as many have stated, mailing lists like this is a place for bottom. Yes, I top post, but only because many of the people I communicate with through normal email (not mailing lists) are in corporate / government environments where MS Exchange Outlook are used. I top-post purely for the fact that it creates less strain for them because their client can't be used to bottom post well. I never thought anyone could get so defensive about their perspective about which form of posting is better. I learn to live with it, because everyone's different and I think the more people go on (rant?) about it, the less likely people are to conform. smime.p7s Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On Thursday June 9 2005 5:10 pm, Patrick Wiseman wrote: I completely agree. Whoever (the attribution is not clear to me) wrote that crap about top posters vs bottom posters is an arrogant idiot. Processing information in reverse order is much more efficient Do you drive in reverse on the freeway, too? After all, doing it backwards is more efficient. -- Paul Johnson Email and Instant Messenger (Jabber): [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://ursine.ca/~baloo/ pgpfUzWjrvgmP.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On Thursday 09 June 2005 10:35 pm, Paul Johnson wrote: On Thursday June 9 2005 5:10 pm, Patrick Wiseman wrote: I completely agree. Whoever (the attribution is not clear to me) wrote that crap about top posters vs bottom posters is an arrogant idiot. Processing information in reverse order is much more efficient Do you drive in reverse on the freeway, too? After all, doing it backwards is more efficient. Boy, someone's got his dander up! There is no comparison to these two. They are two completely different topics and situations. Hal -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Top-posting (another different view) (was: Re: Top posting (a different point of view))
On Jun 09 2005, John Carline wrote: But, it would make my reading/following of threads much easier if I didn't have to scroll down to the bottom of post after post in a long string just to read the one line added to the 200 I've already read. The point is: if somebody makes you scroll down many pages so that you can see his/her answer, then the problem is that that person is not using the right way of posting messages. Quoting messages should be to the point and only leave relevant pieces of older messages. And, of course, the attribution of each quote to the person that generated it. It would be much better added at the top, where it pops onto the screen immediately and I can go on to the next post. This isn't the case if what you are replying to needs a detailed answer. And this is usually the case of a technical mailing list, like this one. OTOH, if the person is only replying to a message in general, I see little motivation to the practice of top-posting. In fact, if the person doesn't really care about preserving the context to where he/she is replying, then why quote the message at all? Just start a reply to the thread from scratch. Since that person is already assuming that the others are following the thread to where the message is being sent, why preserve the older messages' contents? Just another view on this polemical issue, Rogério Brito. -- Learn to quote e-mails decently at: http://www.dtcc.edu/cs/rfc1855.html http://pub.tsn.dk/how-to-quote.php http://learn.to/quote http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/toppost.htm -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Top posting (a different point of view)
On Thu, 9 Jun 2005 20:10:35 -0400, Patrick Wiseman [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: I completely agree. ... Hmm. What do you agree with? Are you agreeing that top posting sucks, or that top posting is good? Well to figure that out, I would need to either scroll down to look at the post that you're replying to (fortunately, my mail reader shows be about 50 lines of the message, so I actually didn't have to scroll) or try to figure it out from the rest of what you write (fortunately, your next sentence makes it clear, but that doesn't happen all the time for everyone, and besides, I don't like being confused after reading the first sentence of a message and having to wait until the second sentence to figure out what's going on). Do you see why it's nice to have the context provided immediately? With a bottom-posted message, I can quickly scan the original message and recall the context that I had read before. If I have to scroll to see the reply (which should be very rare, if quoted text is trimmed properly), I just have to hit [space] once or twice, and I can easily tell when I've reached the reply because my mail reader colours quoted text. With a top-posted message, I read the first sentence, get confused, scroll down to read the context, then scroll back up to read the rest of the reply. Top posters also tend to have the horrible habit of not trimming the original message to only what's relevant... ... I have my email ordered most-recent-first, and it saves me a _lot_ of time, whether the individual emails are top- or bottom-posted! ... I have my mailing lists threaded, and it's nice to be able to just read the first message in a thread and tell my mail reader that I'm not interested in the rest of the messages in the thread. I can't imagine how you would do that with most-recent-first. If you just read the latest message in a thread and find that you're not interested, you can't just kill the thread because you don't know if that message is off on a tangent, or if you really aren't interested in that thread. -- Hubert Chan [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.uhoreg.ca/ PGP/GnuPG key: 1024D/124B61FA Fingerprint: 96C5 012F 5F74 A5F7 1FF7 5291 AF29 C719 124B 61FA Key available at wwwkeys.pgp.net. Encrypted e-mail preferred. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
