Top posting

Order defined by whom? Cumulative comments being appended to the beginning have as much reason as appended at the end.

It seems to me, this "chronological" reasoning is about the best most hardcore bottom posters have, which I'm sad to say isn't much. Anyone with half a brain can see that there are one or two or three indent marks ("> ") on quoted text and thus it is necessarily older, no matter what the location. In addition, rarely are posts missed, so if you want to read the couple previous posts, look them up, it's just that simple.

Give it up. If anything you should complain about bottom or inline posters who leave multiple indents. If you think top posting is bad, you should vehemently despise anyone who puts comments inbetween quoted comments inbetween quoted posts!

But no, that strategy (when applied with sufficient snippage) is quite a good one, and you already agree [with inline posting]. Therefore, by reasoning of post coherence, you must agree with top posting being better than inline posting, or else disagree with both.

Tim

--
Deep Fryer: a very philosophical monk.
Website: http://webpages.charter.net/dawill/tmoranwms

They are not rules they are common sense, an attempt to make this half duplex medium with huge (and variable) propagation delays more conversational.

As (I presume) a radio Ham would you prefer to take part is a sequence of

10 minute broadcasts or try to hold a conversation?

I think the real problem is that, in terms of SED, you have nothing to say.

So... it doesn't really matter where you say it.

Excellent, problem solved.

Oh, of course.... if you ask then that might be different.

DNA

Not unless you are a mind reader and are answering a post before the question has been asked.

The limiting case of inline response is to insert some comment after each sentence or phrase of the previous poster.

The second sentence you wrote flowed onto two lines. Why didn't you put the second line above the first?

Tim

--
-

The former is actually how voice transmission was done by hams 50 years ago, when it was relatively hard to switch from transmitting to receiving!

Whoever dishes out the first insult loses the debate :)

How about saying, "In addition to the following see

" ? That's a kind of remark that makes perfect sense prepended to the beginning of an existing message, and it does not interfere with readability.

How about saying "In message xxxxxx, yyyyyy writes..." ? THAT gets top-posted to EVERY message that has quoted content. A bottom-posting purist would presumably want that information put after the quoted messages, not ahead of them.

The bottom-posting-only crowd wants us to have to page down every time we read any message at all -- sometimes through more than one screenful of "In message xxxxx, yyyyy writes." Top posting allows us to make a reply immediately visible and save everybody from having to page down.

The bottom line? Top posting is an almost universally accepted practice. It wasn't in 1980, but it is now. And the reason it has caught on is that it meets practical needs.

Ooooo, novice quick reference user.

DNA

On Sun, 11 Jun 2006 10:21:33 -0400, "mc" Gave us:

You're an idiot. A lazy E-1 grade fucktard, at best.

On Sun, 11 Jun 2006 14:55:21 -0400, "mc" Gave us:

You're f****ng retarded. Your remarks are an insult.

What about it? It just isn't inline posting.

It is just an out of context remark, if it comes first. If someone emails you and you answer that way, it makes fair sense, since the emailer is expecting your remark. Someone else reading that email would not be able to make sense of it, without first scrolling down and reading the cause or your response, or at least some part of it. Usenet is not a conversation between two people. It is a public discussion that is normally archived for future searches. Lots of people check in, occasionally, to see if there is anything interesting going on. If you top post, they have a hard time understanding what has been happening.

All should be snipped except that needed to identify who said what that you retained in the quoted section before you added your words.

You screwed that up in your previous post, but I repaired the attributions.

I wouldn't. This is introductory information that sets the stage of who has been involved in the discussion up till now, that makes the quoted text make sense. After your trim the quoted text to just what reminds any observer what prompted your response, you go up to the top and trim all the unnecessary attributions (that refer to posters you have completely trimmed out. If you don't have time to consider the efforts of anyone else who might read your response, it is fine with me, but I am probably going to filter your posts, eventually, because understanding them will be more work than they are worth.

A good post is seldom much more than a screen full or two. Lazy bottom posters who can't be bothered to trim text and unneeded attributions and add a line or two at the bottom, discourage many people from reading their posts, just as lazy top posters do. The question you have to ask yourself is are you willing to expend enough effort to make your posts into a contribution to Usenet, or are you just satisfying an urge? My kill file bulges with those momentarily satisfied but not satisfying to me.

That it does. Making the reply is easy, and reading it is easy. Understanding it n a useful context is hard, especially when the message is retrieved in a search, long after you have forgotten it.

I would like to see your survey method and results. It is a very common email technique, but those messages serve a very different purpose than these do.

We shall see.

You are free to collect all my words from this post, and put them at the top of a quote of your last message, and to take a survey to ask who prefers which.

This is not the proper response.

You have to explain how you would race up to Judge Judy's desk and slap a piece of paper on top of the docket that says.....

'MC is a Fuck Tard'

DNA

I wrote a single line, but The Man wrapped it and put it below anyway ;-)

Tim

--
Deep Fryer: a very philosophical monk.
Website: http://webpages.charter.net/dawill/tmoranwms

--
Well, for starters, because it _is_ in printed form?  

But even if it weren\'t, just imagine listening to a text-to-voice
conversion of top posting. 

Ugh.

I wouldn't mind. If I listened to all the previous posts, only the new text, at the top, would be of interest. If I need my memory jogged I can listen on and the proceeding post will become clear.

Bottom posting on text-to-voice would be horrible. You have to skip through all the quoted text, at the very least, in order to hear the new information. If you don't know what's there, fine, but that's beside the point since most posts arrive.

Tim

--
Deep Fryer: a very philosophical monk.
Website: http://webpages.charter.net/dawill/tmoranwms

--
By whoever expects cause to be expressed before effect.

e.g....

Hawkwind voice on.......

"No, you have to put your hand into the fat to see if the temperature is correct"

DNA

Einstein was not a handsome fellow. No-one ever called him Al. He had a long moustache on pull on, it was yellow. I don't believe he ever had a gal.

Think so?

Then go f*ck yourself, maroon, and see who's left standing when it's all over.

Hint: It won't be you.

--
John Fields
Professional Circuit Designer