OT: Top Posting Vs. Bottom Posting: Case Closed!

[Ron May]

Al Klein skrev:

Top posting in an e-mail (I see no distinction between business or
personal) does not make sense if the mail contains multiple points which
should be replied to separately. I much prefer usenet-style replies with
indented paragraphs from the original mail, with replies after each and
every paragraph.

Too bad some business related software (such as Lotus Notes, ew!) makes
this very difficult. You wont believe the messy e-mails I have seen,
especially when the conversation has gone back and forth a few times,
with multiple recipients and CCs added and removed along the way.

What Al said above (in reply to an earlier post of mine) makes sense
if the boss is savvy enough to edit out all the meaningless garbage
between her/his one line missive and the relevant portion.

Unfortunately, most aren't, and for those of us who work in a large
corporate or governmental environment, netiquette is usually not one
of the things you pick to do battle over. Even if you make a convert
or two, you're not going to change the cultural habit of just clicking
the "FWD" button, selecting a distribution list and sending the whole
pile of trash on in its entirety.

And Morten, you're right. Software IS a major contributing/causal
factor. I use Outlook 2003 at work because I don't have a choice.
Very often, I use the technique Al described when passing on an action
or technical item, but ONLY after making sure that JUST the necessary
information gets forwarded and the rest is deleted before sending it.
On the other hand, however, when exchanging emails between individuals
or groups, and there's a need to intersperse point-by-point replies
between paragraphs in non-plain-text Outlook messages, and, at the
same time, have the output appear in professional and readable form,
THAT is overly difficult and requires much extra time and effort that
most people simply aren't willing to invest.

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=BBQ=AB?=]

Agent also puts the cursor at the top.

Is it at the quoted text, ready for snipping, or on a blank line of its
own above the quoted text?

 

[Bill Turner]

ORIGINAL MESSAGE:

Eudora does Usenet? When did this start?

By the way, your Xananews does it also, even though it is an older
version.

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

I never said Eudora does Usenet, only that OE needs the ability to
highlight like Eudora and others.

Bill T.

 

[Roger Johansson]

.. unnecessary full-quoting again and
again is a widespreaded undisciplined absurdity especially not only to
childish, ungrown, unlearnable lazy people or relative newbies confusing
usenet/NGs with chatrooms.

I try to see something positive in everything, and it is good that the
stupid and intentionally badly behaving people show that in the first
page, full of old quotations, many levels deep, then I know that there
is no need to scroll down, I just click the kill file button.

I have wondered if anybody is trying to find the most intelligent
people in usenet.
It would be fairly simple to write a little program which rates authors
in usenet, based on the formatting and the content of their posts, the
number of posts per day, the degree of original content, the language
used, and other criteria.

Google could easily grade authors based on their posting history.

And I would get an incredibly high rating in such a system

Nobody has posted so many well formatted messages, with so much
original content, over such a long time, in so important and serious
areas of human thought.

 

[Bill Turner]

ORIGINAL MESSAGE:

Even if you make a convert
or two, you're not going to change the cultural habit of just clicking
the "FWD" button, selecting a distribution list and sending the whole
pile of trash on in its entirety.

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

In a business environment using email, I think it makes more sense to
top post *and* include the entire original post, without trimming.

Here on Usenet, if a replier screws up and trims an important part of
the original post little harm is done, but for a business *email* it
could be critical. I believe that's why Microsoft products are the way
they are.

Just my opinion, can't prove it.

Bill T.

 

[badgolferman]

Google could easily grade authors based on their posting history.

And I would get an incredibly high rating in such a system

Yes, I would grade you very highly in opinion also.

 

[Terry Russell]

In a business environment using email, I think it makes more sense to
top post *and* include the entire original post, without trimming.

Here on Usenet, if a replier screws up and trims an important part of
the original post little harm is done, but for a business *email* it
could be critical. I believe that's why Microsoft products are the way
they are.

Just my opinion, can't prove it.

Most software is really very primitive, you may as well discuss the right
shade of ochre to paint hand prints with.

For issues with some immediately useful content I prefer edited and
interspersed comments.

For convenience when hunting old emails and googling then top post and
full quote makes things a tad easier.

Rock/paper/scissors.

Full quoting is a holdover from the days of comments on paper, the
impression
that it cannot be faked, and that propagating full context in multiple
copies
may cover your derriere.

Top post enourages full quote, indeed it makes it almost a toughtless
side effect.
Imagine the load when 100 staff get forwarded a 50 meg document scan
for comment, then forward the whole thing back, and back again , and back
again.
A small business can have 50 GigaB of core data, and 5 TeraB of old
emails carefully backed up that noone will ever read again but noone
can bother to review or dare delete wholesale.

Server crashes and slow intranets are natures way of telling you staff
are quoting too much

 

[Ron May]

Is it at the quoted text, ready for snipping, or on a blank line of its
own above the quoted text?

This is from Agent 3.3 and the cursor was to the left of the "O" in
"On Sun, 23 Apr..."

I'm almost certain Outlook puts the cursor on a line of its own ABOVE
the quoted text. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Al Klein]

Is it at the quoted text, ready for snipping, or on a blank line of its
own above the quoted text?

It was at the left end of the "On Sun, 23 Apr 2006 ..." line.

Granted, it's different than what Outlook (and, I assume, OE) does.
But it's still at the top of the reply.

 

[Al Klein]

Ben Rudiak-Gould - 21.04.2006 23:16 :

Are you shure? Read further in this thread and especially what the more
"regulars" are thinking.

The regulars are blasting top posting, not suggesting bottom posting.
Disliking one is not liking the other.

 

[Al Klein]

Another misbehavior, IMHO:

1. is top-posting with a sig-delimiter directly after the top-post AND
further then fullquoting within the siglines (should be not more than 4
lines)

2. using other quoting markers as ">". So postings, especially within
longer threads. become more and more confusing/unreadble because of a
mixture of ">, |, #, :" and so on

3. OT and flaming

If we're listing pet peeves, I have a couple:

1. Optional spelling. To, too and two have different meanings.
Sometimes it's actually not easy to ascertain meaning if the wrong one
is used. If I didn't want to understand what the poster meant, I
wouldn't read the post.

2. "Internet spelling", for want of a better term: "R u shur?"

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=BBQ=AB?=]

This is from Agent 3.3 and the cursor was to the left of the "O"
in "On Sun, 23 Apr..."

Thanks to you and to Al for the answer. I asked because it
occasionally comes up in news.software.readers, and there aren't
many Agent users there, since you have your own newsgroup.

I'm almost certain Outlook puts the cursor on a line of its own
ABOVE the quoted text. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

Yeah, it does, so the user can just start typing if s/he wants to
top-post.

FWIW, Xnews has two modes. If there was some text highlighted before
hitting 'reply', only that text is quoted. In that case, the cursor
starts out below the quoted text, since snipping has already been done.
If no text is highlighted, the entire post is quoted, and the cursor
starts out right before the first > character.

 

[Bill Turner]

ORIGINAL MESSAGE:

I have wondered if anybody is trying to find the most intelligent
people in usenet.
It would be fairly simple to write a little program which rates
authors in usenet, based on the formatting and the content of their
posts, the number of posts per day, the degree of original content,
the language used, and other criteria.

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

If you think those criteria are a measure of intelligence, you have
just removed yourself from the competition.

Bill Turner

 

[Bill Turner]

ORIGINAL MESSAGE:

The regulars are blasting top posting, not suggesting bottom posting.
Disliking one is not liking the other.

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

I've read that about four times and it still makes no sense. I'll give
it another dozen or so and then I quit.

Bill Turner

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=BBQ=AB?=]

ORIGINAL MESSAGE:



I've read that about four times and it still makes no sense.

Consider interspersing.

 

[badgolferman]

Q, where's the x-face in your post? Some have it and some don't.

 

[Bill Turner]

ORIGINAL MESSAGE:

»Q« wrote:

Consider interspersing.

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

Against my religion, sorry.

Bill Turner

 

[elaich]

If we're listing pet peeves, I have a couple:

Mine are "affect" and "effect." Seems like about 75% of people don't know
the correct usage of these words.

"How is it going to effect me?" Incorrect.
"How is it going to affect me?" Correct.

"That's going to have a bad affect on me." Incorrect.
"That's going to have a bad effect on me." Correct.

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=BBQ=AB?=]

Consider interspersing.

Against my religion, sorry.

Then Al's comments aren't likely ever to make sense to you.

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=BBQ=AB?=]

Q, where's the x-face in your post? Some have it and some don't.

They all have them, AFAICT. I just looked at the ones in this thread,
and they do. Maybe some server between me and you is stripping them
out? I dunno.