Re: Battle of the Sidewalk ][ - error

From: John Steinberg (seesig_at_bottom.invalid)
Date: 06/07/04 

Date: Mon, 07 Jun 2004 22:53:05 GMT

Alan French wrote:

> I've always been curious about how the idea that top posting was "bad" got
> going. In following long threads, especially when folks don't bother
> cutting much out, it seems easier to have the response at the top - then you
> don't have to rummage through everything again and again and again.

That's true, but that's because not trimming for context is also a
Usenet no-no. It's lazy, sloppy, inconsiderate and creates a very
messy posting where quoting attributes can take a scalpel to decipher.

> Obviously, this seems to be a minority view.

Judging from the number of people on s.a.a., in particular, who pop
toast (as Paul charmingly describes it) it's probably not a minority
view, although it is still incorrect.

There seems to be prevailing opinion that A). I'll make my own darn
rules and B). This is what I do in email, ergo that's what I'll do on
Usenet. Some of this behavior is no doubt the result of folks using
the same program to deal with email and news.

But let me state something categorically, in email, where there often
is a need to leave a "paper trail", and where the level of
sophistication can be very low, top-posting is the norm, and that's
fine, as in a one-to-one exchange, there are different expectations of
behavior, no outside readership, and thus different rules can apply.

But here on Usenet, exchanges are not 1:1, they are open to all, and
top-posting without trimming is bad form. That's not my opinion, but
rather established guidelines of which reams of digital info exists. I
will also note that Yahoo groups, where again top-posting without
trimming prevails, are not Usenet groups.

Incidentally, many of the "rules" regarding Usenet are indeed somewhat
antiquated and based upon the early years of very slow connections, but
even in today's broadband or faster dial-up world, these conventions
are still very useful and still very dominant, particularly in
newsgroups where the tolerance for top-posting is low to nonexistent.
s.a.a. is far more tolerant of bad posting form than many/most groups,
and that's a good thing. Far too much bandwidth is burned and flame
wars erupt over this issue elsewhere.

In the real world, we don't see the answer to questions prior to the
question, do we? Consider the following:

Answer:Top-posting

Question: What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?

The flow is wrong, and only works for those actively involved in a
thread who have been following from start to finish. Not all do, and
then there are issues of propagation and retention, which can render
top-posting even more problematic.

Now, before I blather on any further, some links to help the old and
new Usenet user alike better familiarize themselves with proper and
good habits for posting.

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/posting-rules/part1/
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1855.html
http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote2.html

Blather continues:

There are many other links on this topic, but the authoritative sources
are quite clear; top-posting and not trimming for context is poor
netiquette, inconsiderate to those who read articles and pay by the
minute for the privilege, wasted bandwidth, and renders many otherwise
fine articles and threads very difficult to read and follow. You
should only know just how AWFUL some of the top-posted and non-trimmed
articles parse in my newsreaders. I often just skip them due to the
eyestrain they create.

Please bear in mind that not all clients are created equally, and one
should post so as to cover the widest possible audience. What you see
on screen is very different than what I see, but we can make things far
more useful for all if we all stick to these well-established and
well-founded conventions. Just as we do frown upon binaries posted to
text-only newsgroups, there are conventions and expectations about how
to post and quote properly.

I will note for the record that I address this issue, on average, about
once a year, and here on s.a.a., it tends to fall on totally deaf ears
and blind eyes, but sometimes one just has to at least *try* to educate
the user base. I hold no expectations that even one unrepentant
top-posting and non-trimmer user will so much as bother to read and
absorb the provided links, but where there's life there's hope. 

-- 
-John Steinberg
email: not@thistime.invalid
...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. 
                                 --Sir Bedevere

Relevant Pages

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  • Re: Your Opinion Please: Pretentious Words & Phrases...
    ... If the reader has to go through "the whole previous post", then this is just as bad as top-posting. ... Actually the issue of correct posting to the Usenet was the subject of a paper published by the UK's Tavistock Institute about seven or eight years ago. ... But when they're presented with the simple communication conventions of the Usenet, which have evolved over quarter of a century as a global forum and therefore requires fairly dynamic thinking to work properly, they're buggered. ...
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  • Re: Another Newbie Question - Be nice Lumpy :-)
    ... I'm not really sure what "top-posting" is, ... That's posting your response *before* the article you're ... What is the most annoying thing on Usenet? ...
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  • Re: Another Newbie Question - Be nice Lumpy :-)
    ... I'm not really sure what "top-posting" is, so please let me know so I ... That's posting your response *before* the article you're quoting. ... What is the most annoying thing on Usenet? ...
    (alt.marketing.online.ebay)
  • Re: Another Newbie Question - Be nice Lumpy :-)
    ... I'm not really sure what "top-posting" is, so please let me know so I ... That's posting your response *before* the article you're quoting. ... What is the most annoying thing on Usenet? ...
    (alt.marketing.online.ebay)