freebsd vs. netbsd

[Aryeh Friedman]

On Thu, Jun 11, 2020 at 6:24 AM Steve O'Hara-Smith <steve at sohara.org> wrote:

> On Thu, 11 Jun 2020 05:53:30 -0400
> Aryeh Friedman <aryeh.friedman at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > As I said before the top posting rule really does fly in the face of
> > convention for most non-technical/mailing list oriented mail users.
>
>         However it is a convention older than the public internet and one
> that is very common in mailing lists and universal on USENET. So since this
> is a mailing list it is a good idea for newcomers to be aware of the
> conventions and the reasons for them. These are not FreeBSD conventions,
> nor is asking people to follow it one, they are mailing list and USENET
> conventions older and wider than FreeBSD.
>
>
The problem is not in informing people of the convention, it is when people
post messages like "Stop top-posting!!!" as being their entire message and
not even including so much as a please or offering any explanation at all
to their comment.  That kind of message is just rude no matter how correct
or incorrect it is and that is the aloof/arrogant reputation I am talking
about.     A good example is the original comment by Ottavio I was
commenting on "You keep on top-posting and breaking basic and established
etiquette." ... "I wonder what makes you think you are in the position of
lecturing.".   If I was new to FreeBSD and saw someone do that my first
reaction would be f**k you (the poster) and this OS I am using something
else if people are that rude.

As to the comment of how common top posting is or not almost every web
based MUA defaults to it and since most people don't use mailing lists they
by reflex (even if they know better) will just start typing and then see it
is a top-post only after they hit return!  (I have done that a number of
times for example).   It should be noted many discussion forums have also
adopted the default of top posting when making a direct quote (for many of
the same reasons).
-- 
Aryeh M. Friedman, Lead Developer, http://www.PetiteCloud.org