Re: top posting (off-topic)
On November 25, 2007 at 09:49PM Giorgos Keramidas wrote: [ snip ] The footnote was easy to understand after a quick Wikipedia search: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-posting#Top-posting Quoting the text (so list members don't have to actually repeat the search): Some maintain that top-posting is _never_ appropriate, and refer to it jokingly as the TOFU method (from the German text oben, fullquote unten, sometimes translated text over, fullquote under) [...] Nice one. I had not heard of TOFU posting before :) There are some more interesting meaning here: http://www.acronymfinder.com/af-query.asp?Acronym=tofuFind=findstring=exact -- Gerard ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top posting (off-topic)
On Fri, Nov 23, 2007 at 02:52:06PM +0100, Matthias Apitz wrote: It should be easy in mailing-lists to block mails of top-posters. It would also probably be prone to false positive errors. -- CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ] McCloctnick the Lucid: The first rule of magic is simple. Don't waste your time waving your hands and hopping when a rock or a club will do. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top posting (off-topic)
On Fri, Nov 23, 2007 at 10:48:38AM -0800, David Benfell wrote: On Fri, 23 Nov 2007 11:31:51 -0500, Bart Silverstrim wrote: We have adults who can't be bothered to tell the difference between lose and loose in writing. Wonderful things encouraged by people justifying their lazy writing styles. This might be slightly unfair. A large proportion of the population has *never* been able to spell correctly or to use proper grammar. A difference between now, and a few years ago, is that we are more often encountering their expressions in a written form, as they, too, gain access to the Internet. I think it's kind of a chicken-and-egg problem: we don't really know for sure whether TOFU[1] posting spurred much of the rise of illiteracy or the increase of relative illiteracy on the Internet led to an increase in TOFU posting. Which came first? Ultimately, I think greater frequency of TOFU posting and a reduced average ability to order one's thoughts to compose meaningful discourse each contribute to the other. And an insistence on grammatical and spelling correctness is its own form of elitism. Is it? In my case, it tends to be a couple of things, neither of which is particularly elitist as far as I can tell: 1. an attempt to help others learn how to think more clearly and express themselves more precisely 2. an easy way to filter those who do not think very clearly so I can spend more of my time on those who do, since better grammar and spelling (along with certain other communication skills) tends to be indicative of clearer thought I won't ignore someone who displays appalling lack of writing capabilities just because of poor spelling or grammar. I sometimes need to cut down on how much stuff gets read in a given day, so I have time to do something with the information I get from my reading, and when the need is great enough it's usually the people who don't communicate worth a damn that get cut first. -- CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ] Kent Beck: I always knew that one day Smalltalk would replace Java. I just didn't know it would be called Ruby. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top posting (off-topic)
On Fri, Nov 23, 2007 at 10:22:50AM +1300, Brent Jones wrote: I find that top-posting really makes it difficult to follow the flow of a discussion. I especially find it difficult when someone engages in TOFU [1] posting, because when I try to check context there's a gawdawful lengthy blob of stuff, of which usually only a tiny bit is context. Please trim and post in context. I for one prefer top posting, as usually I have read a particular thread enough times that I like to cut to the chase and read the new input without having to scroll down, sometimes navigating an endless nesting of For me, reading through top posted replies saves time and effort. If I happened to miss something in the conversation I can scroll down to find it. I'm sure someone does, but I don't. Anyone else feel the same? [1]: TOFU = Text Over, Fullquote Under; a term for the most common form of top posting -- CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ] Baltasar Gracian: A wise man gets more from his enemies than a fool from his friends. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top posting (off-topic)
On Sun, Nov 25, 2007 at 06:56:15PM -0700, Chad Perrin wrote: I think it's kind of a chicken-and-egg problem: we don't really know for sure whether TOFU[1] posting spurred much of the rise of illiteracy or the increase of relative illiteracy on the Internet led to an increase in TOFU posting. Which came first? I forgot to include the footnote about TOFU in the preceding message. It would have looked something like this: [1]: TOFU = Text Over, Fullquote Under; the most common format of top posted replies -- CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ] MacUser, Nov. 1990: There comes a time in the history of any project when it becomes necessary to shoot the engineers and begin production. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top posting (off-topic)
On 2007-11-25 19:01, Chad Perrin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sun, Nov 25, 2007 at 06:56:15PM -0700, Chad Perrin wrote: I think it's kind of a chicken-and-egg problem: we don't really know for sure whether TOFU[1] posting spurred much of the rise of illiteracy or the increase of relative illiteracy on the Internet led to an increase in TOFU posting. Which came first? I forgot to include the footnote about TOFU in the preceding message. It would have looked something like this: [1]: TOFU = Text Over, Fullquote Under; the most common format of top posted replies The footnote was easy to understand after a quick Wikipedia search: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-posting#Top-posting Quoting the text (so list members don't have to actually repeat the search): Some maintain that top-posting is _never_ appropriate, and refer to it jokingly as the TOFU method (from the German text oben, fullquote unten, sometimes translated text over, fullquote under) [...] Nice one. I had not heard of TOFU posting before :) ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top posting (off-topic)
Hi, Brent Jones wrote: Sorry if this is a bit off topic for this list, but it seem to be a comment that comes up very regularly; please don't top post... at least, you make me understand what this means. Yes, it is stupid to avoid top posting as they save a lot of time as long as it is still clear how it is connected to the original message. I for one prefer top posting, as usually I have read a particular thread enough times that I like to cut to the chase and read the new input without having to scroll down, sometimes navigating an endless nesting Most of the time, it is a waste to keep the parts of the original message which is not referred to in the answer. Anyone else feel the same? Oh yes! Erich ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top posting (off-topic)
On 2007-11-23 21:58, David Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Nov 22, 2007, at 9:10 PM, Paul Schmehl wrote: Understood from that perspective, perhaps you can see why people might dislike top posting. Many here (and elsewhere) will not reply to a top-poster. I am one of these people. If I see a top-posted message -- totally incomprehensible, full of errors, misformattings, and other annoying bits, including mutilated quotes with completely messed up quoting, and semi-randomly wrapped text -- then it instantly rings a very important bell: The author of this message does not care enough to put some effort into writing a properly formatted, readable reply. If he doesn't care enough to make his message readable, do you really want to spend the effort to _read_ it? The answer is, surprisingly often, No, I don't think I want to do that. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top posting (off-topic)
David Benfell wrote: On Fri, 23 Nov 2007 11:31:51 -0500, Bart Silverstrim wrote: We have adults who can't be bothered to tell the difference between lose and loose in writing. Wonderful things encouraged by people justifying their lazy writing styles. This might be slightly unfair. A large proportion of the population has *never* been able to spell correctly or to use proper grammar. has never been able to is not a valid excuse in my book when it comes to writing without a significant number of qualifications. The vast number of people I see misusing common words are fully educated and are very able to use most of the other words in the same message just fine, yet never stop to fix proper usage of loose vs. lose. I'm not saying writing must be perfect, and I'm well aware of my own grammar shortcomings and I fully understand typos and mistakes. But there are also trends that I run into ALL THE TIME that are simply a case of people not taking a bit of care. A difference between now, and a few years ago, is that we are more often encountering their expressions in a written form, as they, too, gain access to the Internet. AND they don't care enough to take a few moments to edit or put thought into their writing. That was my point. We have small businesses in the small town I live in. Many of them have typos in their signs. Constantly. Now, if I go to a fast food joint in my town and they screw up my drink, bleh, it happens. I can accept that mistakes happen. But when a place screws up my order three or four times in a row, as our local Burger King did, I stop going there. Period. When there are businesses with a mistake on their sign, well, maybe it's a plain whoops. When I see mistakes consistently in their signs, I wonder if they really care about their business image, and if they're lazy or not willing to take care in their image, would I trust that they are careful in doing business as well? I avoid them. As a graduate student in communication, I write a lot. As a teacher of public speaking, I see grammatical and spelling errors in the outlines my students turn in. These errors irritate me, but having also worked in the technology sector, and having seen memos from my fellow technology workers, prior to outsourcing and the importing of people who have an excuse, I know my students are not alone. There is making mistakes and there is plain I don't care. The ones that make mistakes try not to repeat them. They care about trying not to look like ignoramuses. If I were to point out that loose and lose mean to entirely different things they would make a note not to do that again in the future. The ones I SPECIFICALLY refer to are the latter. They DON'T CARE. These are the ones that treat email as a substitute for instant messenger. They care nothing for crafting messages to deliver a message rather than a mental fart. They are the ones that think communication reached a zenith by reading, word for word, a set of PowerPoint slides to the assembled napping crowd. Dyslexia and other learning disabilities that impede mastery of spelling and grammar may be much more common than is often reported. Underfunded public schools don't help. Yeah, I work in a US public school. My wife is an English teacher. She has more students than she cares to have claiming, upon having mistakes pointed out, I'm just not a good speller. It's an excuse. She knows what these kids are capable of and quite frankly they are simply not being careful, and I'm tired of coddling them and enabling their laziness further by dismissing their mistakes as being okay when they simply don't put effort into fixing the problem. It's also an insult to those that do work hard to overcome their problems. I know a couple of dyslexics who spell words rather well because they worked to overcome the problem. How is it fair to ignore the ones that just don't want to put effort into doing better? They didn't just passively accept a limitation, they worked at making their situation better. Others do them no favors in just nodding a smiling and telling them it's okay to just be sub par when they are capable of at least trying to do better. And an insistence on grammatical and spelling correctness is its own form of elitism. No, I'm insisting on not being lazy and passing it off as just the norm. I've clearly acknowledged that I don't expect perfection, and mistakes are more than acceptable. What I DON'T accept is when they are no longer mistakes, just a simple I-don't-give-a-damn attitude. The writing is untrimmed, the grammar is sloppy, and the excuse is that it saves THEM time and effort. Quoting isn't trimmed. No effort is put into crafting a message. Email is turned less into a communication medium and more into a very very poor form of instant messaging. Messages in the archive consist of non-linear messages piled on top of each other
Re: top posting (off-topic)
On Nov 22, 2007, at 9:10 PM, Paul Schmehl wrote: Understood from that perspective, perhaps you can see why people might dislike top posting. When asking a favor of another, a wise man would not offend his potential helper. Many here (and elsewhere) will not reply to a top- poster. You want some of my time then you had better take the minimal effort to phrase and format your communication. Less effort, actually. A trimmed insert-reply is not only a more accurate communication, but faster to create, as well as faster to read and comprehend. -- David Kelly N4HHE, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top posting (off-topic)
On Fri, 23 Nov 2007 11:31:51 -0500, Bart Silverstrim wrote: We have adults who can't be bothered to tell the difference between lose and loose in writing. Wonderful things encouraged by people justifying their lazy writing styles. This might be slightly unfair. A large proportion of the population has *never* been able to spell correctly or to use proper grammar. A difference between now, and a few years ago, is that we are more often encountering their expressions in a written form, as they, too, gain access to the Internet. As a graduate student in communication, I write a lot. As a teacher of public speaking, I see grammatical and spelling errors in the outlines my students turn in. These errors irritate me, but having also worked in the technology sector, and having seen memos from my fellow technology workers, prior to outsourcing and the importing of people who have an excuse, I know my students are not alone. Dyslexia and other learning disabilities that impede mastery of spelling and grammar may be much more common than is often reported. Underfunded public schools don't help. And an insistence on grammatical and spelling correctness is its own form of elitism. -- David Benfell, LCP [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Resume available at http://www.parts-unknown.org/ NOTE: I sign all messages with GnuPG (0DD1D1E3). pgpoYMeSjyMXH.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: top posting (off-topic)
Robert Huff wrote: Bart Silverstrim writes: You're right in that top posting is a savings in effort. I disagree. It's not a savings, it's a transfer - moves the work from the poster to the reader. Okay, I'll qualify my statement by saying it is a time and effort saver for the author only... -Bart ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top posting (off-topic)
Bart Silverstrim writes: You're right in that top posting is a savings in effort. I disagree. It's not a savings, it's a transfer - moves the work from the poster to the reader. Make that readers, because /every single reader/ has been imposed on to expend the effort. Looked at that way, it could be seen as not just lazy and stupid but outright hostile. Robert Huff ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top posting (off-topic)
El día Friday, November 23, 2007 a las 08:05:59AM -0500, Bill Moran escribió: There are three reasons _not_ to top-post and to post inline, trimming your response intelligently: 1) Top-posting does not scale up to large, complex emails. It produces incomprehensible responses when the conversation requires more than a yes or no answer. 2) Stop thinking about yourself and realize that most messages read in archives long after they were posted. Top posted messages in archives are a lot more difficult to parse, and usually require a lot of clicking around to get back to earlier messages, etc. 3) RFC-1855 says so. ... I'm as well participating for *many* years in technical mailing-lists or USENET and I'm strictly against top-posting. I think this problem (that people top-post or don't even know that they top-post because they don't know what top-posting is at all) has something todo with two phenomena: - the Internet in the 90es felled into the hands of non-technical backgrounded people; ask today someone what is a RFC, for an example; Netiquette Guidelines came outdated (for the newcomers) and they don't know them or even think, if they know, that they have something todo with the plain old days of modem lines and UUCP; - many of the MUA used by unskilled people are somewhat browser-based (OutLook, webmail, ...) and don't support a power-full line editor (like vi or emacs) to assemble and/or edit the mail body; the browser just put the write-mark above the 1st line of the mail, people write their stuff and are to lazy to scroll down, delete parts or whatever; many of them don't even know how to configure their MUA to do correct nesting with signs; The only (week) technical argument in favour of top-post is that mail delivered to small wire-less devices (like mobile phones, hand helds) mostly only transfer the 1st 'screen' of such mail via UMTS or whatever transport layer and only if the reader wants to scroll down the rest of the mail is aired to the device. It should be easy in mailing-lists to block mails of top-posters. matthias -- Matthias Apitz Manager Technical Support - OCLC PICA GmbH Gruenwalder Weg 28g - 82041 Oberhaching - Germany t +49-89-61308 351 - f +49-89-61308 399 - m +49-170-4527211 e [EMAIL PROTECTED] - w http://www.oclcpica.org/ http://www.UnixArea.de/ b http://gurucubano.blogspot.com/ ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top posting (off-topic)
Brent Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I for one prefer top posting, as usually I have read a particular thread enough times that I like to cut to the chase and read the new input without having to scroll down, sometimes navigating an endless nesting of For me, reading through top posted replies saves time and effort. If I happened to miss something in the conversation I can scroll down to find it. There are three reasons _not_ to top-post and to post inline, trimming your response intelligently: 1) Top-posting does not scale up to large, complex emails. It produces incomprehensible responses when the conversation requires more than a yes or no answer. 2) Stop thinking about yourself and realize that most messages read in archives long after they were posted. Top posted messages in archives are a lot more difficult to parse, and usually require a lot of clicking around to get back to earlier messages, etc. 3) RFC-1855 says so. Most people who _honestly_ ask this question simply don't have a lot of experience with online discussions. Take the advice of people who have been doing this for years and you look smart. -- Bill Moran http://www.potentialtech.com ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top posting (off-topic)
Brent Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I for one prefer top posting, as usually I have read a particular thread http://www.asciiartfarts.com/20011201.html HTH, HAND -- Peter N. M. Hansteen, member of the first RFC 1149 implementation team http://bsdly.blogspot.com/ http://www.datadok.no/ http://www.nuug.no/ Remember to set the evil bit on all malicious network traffic delilah spamd[29949]: 85.152.224.147: disconnected after 42673 seconds. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top posting (off-topic)
Brent Jones wrote: I for one prefer top posting, as usually I have read a particular thread enough times that I like to cut to the chase and read the new input without having to scroll down, sometimes navigating an endless nesting of For me, reading through top posted replies saves time and effort. If I happened to miss something in the conversation I can scroll down to find it. Anyone else feel the same? I don't. If you're going to top post, trim the cruft. Archives don't need 10 posts getting gradually larger as you repeat the repeat the repeat the repeat... As I read from top to bottom, if you're referring to something that's buried somewhere below headers (that you left in) that are below more information, etc., it's a PITA to find what you're talking about in context. You're right in that top posting is a savings in effort. It takes effort to craft a response, and instead just burp a brain toot to the list. I would suggest looking into Instant Messaging as a better outlet for such brain toots. People constantly bitch about emails being hard to interpret. Was it serious? Sarcastic? A joke? Top posters encourage taking this to the next step...they make the message more vague. What were you referring to? A particular passage? In general? What? In your race to save a few seconds of actual thought and editing, you make the message more vague. Thanks. If you don't read the bottom part, why the hell are you quoting it? Just to make the archives larger? So I can refer to it if I need to?? Here's an idea. Read the old messages. Your search engine in your mail program may speed up a few nanoseconds if you don't have all that extra crap repeated a dozen times. Best part...replying to a 5K message, top posted, just so you can add a one-line comment. WHY? No wonder email is thought to increase brain rot. People don't take the time to edit or think through thoughts before laying them to the virtual paper, and it's at the point where you read something, burp a brain fart to the top and resend it while justifying their inability to adhere to the reading top-to-bottom that so many have come to accept by reading books and articles in a linear fashion as a child as a time-saver. Bigger time-saver for me is to delete messages when they come in with that formatting. We have l337 sp33k because it saves time. U seen it b4, rite? We have top posting. We have adults who can't be bothered to tell the difference between lose and loose in writing. Wonderful things encouraged by people justifying their lazy writing styles. You make an impression online by your writing. These shortcuts strike me as coming from authors that are too lazy to craft their thoughts into something worth presenting...sloppy. Silly mistakes and typos happen but all too often, when coupled with other styling choices they make, it's hard to give the benefit of the doubt as to how much they care how much credibility they loose by using sloppy expressions of their thoughts. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top posting (off-topic)
On Fri, 23 Nov 2007 10:22:50 +1300, Brent Jones wrote: Sorry if this is a bit off topic for this list, but it seem to be a comment that comes up very regularly; please don't top post... I for one prefer top posting This has been hashed out on so many technically-oriented lists, that it almost appears as a troll. A friend of mine manages, if I recall correctly, to answer this in a signature block, pointing to a logical discontinuity inherent in placing an answer prior to the question. But it gets worse, when some, particularly newbies, reply to a post in order to start a completely new topic. And it gets even worse when some of us--particularly the most helpful ones--are subscribed to numerous technical lists and should review the context of the communication prior to responding. So, my response, and I daresay I speak for others, is for you to get over it. You should review the entire context of a communication in understanding it as well. -- David Benfell, LCP [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Resume available at http://www.parts-unknown.org/ NOTE: I sign all messages with GnuPG (0DD1D1E3). pgp9yj6QWsWrg.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: top posting (off-topic)
Understood from that perspective, perhaps you can see why people might dislike top posting. Rather, your entire response is at the top, separating itself from the context to which it refers. Furthermore, it can be very confusing to understand precisely what you're referring to, because your response doesn't follow those parts of the post to which you refer. Sometimes top posting makes it really hard to follow which parts of the previous posters words are being referenced. If you think about it from the perspective of all of the readers of a thread, you might feel differently, however. I can understand why you might feel that way. --On November 23, 2007 10:22:50 AM +1300 Brent Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sorry if this is a bit off topic for this list, but it seem to be a comment that comes up very regularly; please don't top post... I for one prefer top posting, as usually I have read a particular thread enough times that I like to cut to the chase and read the new input without having to scroll down, sometimes navigating an endless nesting of For me, reading through top posted replies saves time and effort. If I happened to miss something in the conversation I can scroll down to find it. Anyone else feel the same? Cheers, Brent ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Paul Schmehl ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Senior Information Security Analyst The University of Texas at Dallas http://www.utdallas.edu/ir/security/ ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top posting (off-topic)
On Thursday 22 November 2007 21:22:50 Brent Jones wrote: Sorry if this is a bit off topic for this list, but it seem to be a comment that comes up very regularly; please don't top post... I for one prefer top posting, as usually I have read a particular thread enough times that I like to cut to the chase and read the new input without having to scroll down, sometimes navigating an endless nesting of For me, reading through top posted replies saves time and effort. If I happened to miss something in the conversation I can scroll down to find it. Anyone else feel the same? Since most people don't like top-posting, I try not to do it except occasionally in personal email. I don't do it on mailing lists. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top posting (off-topic)
(Moved to freebsd-chat where it belongs.) On Nov 22, 2007, at 3:22 PM, Brent Jones wrote: I for one prefer top posting, as usually I have read a particular thread enough times that I like to cut to the chase and read the new input without having to scroll down, sometimes navigating an endless nesting of Top posting is the worst format to use for reply. Close 2nd worst is the no-trim bottom post. If new content doesn't start somewhere very close to the top then the sender failed to create a message worth reading. By trimming and inserting comments in the proper place one creates a semblance to the alternating back and forth of live conversation. For me, reading through top posted replies saves time and effort. If I happened to miss something in the conversation I can scroll down to find it. Reading from bottom up is painful. Even more painful after a couple of generations the added quoting and occasional wrapping get thrown in. There is no excuse to resend the entire thread with every new contribution, especially when dealing with a mailing list. If you thought the prior messages were worth keeping then you kept them. Else you can go online and find them. The sender bears some responsibility for every word sent, or re-sent. One should never send a message one has not fully read and proofread. Top-posters almost never review the bulk they send else they wouldn't send the unreadable junk. Or at least I'm giving benefit of doubt that they would not. Anyone else feel the same? No. Heck no. -- David Kelly N4HHE, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: top posting (off-topic)
On Fri, 23 Nov 2007 10:22:50 +1300 Brent Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sorry if this is a bit off topic for this list, but it seem to be a comment that comes up very regularly; please don't top post... I for one prefer top posting, as usually I have read a particular thread enough times that I like to cut to the chase and read the new input without having to scroll down, sometimes navigating an endless nesting of For me, reading through top posted replies saves time and effort. If I happened to miss something in the conversation I can scroll down to find it. Anyone else feel the same? No, top-posting is superficially appealing when all replies are limited to a few words that generally end in sucks or rocks, but it doesn't scale to complex threads. The point of quoting is not only to keep a record of what went before, it's to show which aspects of previous posts are being addressed by the reply. That sometimes requires multilevel and interleaved quoting, which doesn't work with top-posting. And by top-posting you make it harder for the next person to do the right thing. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
top posting (off-topic)
Sorry if this is a bit off topic for this list, but it seem to be a comment that comes up very regularly; please don't top post... I for one prefer top posting, as usually I have read a particular thread enough times that I like to cut to the chase and read the new input without having to scroll down, sometimes navigating an endless nesting of For me, reading through top posted replies saves time and effort. If I happened to miss something in the conversation I can scroll down to find it. Anyone else feel the same? Cheers, Brent ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
