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

Vizion vizion at vizion.occoxmail.com
Sat May 28 10:57:33 PDT 2005


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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