Top posting

[RobinS]

Yeah, there can be a lot of business reasons why a programmer needs to
ask how to write a routine to figure out the first 100 prime numbers, or
something like that...

Robin S.

Just to clarify, I was being facetious.

Robin S.
p.s. I bottom-posted this because he did. I never top-post if someone has
already bottom-posted first.

 

[RobinS]

I agree.

Robin S.
--------------------

I don't really care how the posts are made, but if you aren't going to
snip the previous post, I prefer top posting as the answer is immediatly
readable without having to scroll (more reasons for this at the bottom).
If there are several questions, keep the answers separate (paragraph per
answer) on top, bottom or inline.

However, during all the years in various public internet communities,
there is one important rule to remember. There are no rules, and the
quicker you accept it, the faster you will stop being annoyed at people
not following what you consider rules. That said, there are guidelines,
and the more guidelines you follow, the more respect you will get, but
guidelines are optional. In a non public, or semi-public, moderated
forum you may enforce rules as you like, but you may well find out that
the less rules enforced, the happier the community.

As for guidelines, those are tricky, as there are very few common grounds
where every community agree. Usually they all agree on abusive language,
but posting style is too dependent on how you read and write the
messages.

One point regarding "reasons for not top posting" which claims it is
unnatural to read the question after the answer. This is true only if
you haven't already read the question, and is relevant only if you go
directly to an answer, which in my mind is rather unnatural, although if
would make sense if you search an archive and get more relevant hits on
the answer than the question. In this regard I often keep the original
question included in my answer (for archive reasons), but at the bottom
as it is relevant only to people not following the thread.

Btw, since entering news net (usenet) in 1994 I have seen two posts
complaining about top posted answers, both during the last year. Not
sure what to make of that.

 

[Christopher Ireland]

Morten,

I don't really care how the posts are made, but if you aren't going
to snip the previous post, I prefer top posting as the answer is
immediatly readable without having to scroll (more reasons for this
at the bottom).

I would agree that these things boil down to simple personal preference.

There are no rules, and the
quicker you accept it, the faster you will stop being annoyed at
people not following what you consider rules. That said, there are
guidelines, and the more guidelines you follow, the more respect you
will get, but guidelines are optional. In a non public, or
semi-public, moderated forum you may enforce rules as you like, but
you may well find out that the less rules enforced, the happier the
community.

As you say, some communities offer guidelines as to how to use their
newsgroups, including rules which are enforced by the people responsible for
managing these groups. A good example of this, without going outside of the
programming community, are the guidelines Borland offer to the users of
their newsgroups here:
http://info.borland.com/newsgroups/guide.html

Borland even offers suggestions for newsgroup etiquette here:
http://info.borland.com/newsgroups/netiquette.html

which includes the following:
"Keep quoted text to a minimum. When quoting a previous post, edit out the
non-relevant parts of the message. Remove salutations and signatures. A good
rule of thumb is, there should not be more quoted text than new text.

NOTE: Under certain circumstances your message may be cancelled for quoting
style. One such circumstance is quoting a message that is subsequently
determined to be in violation of the newsgroup rules; when the message in
violation is cancelled, your message quoting it will also be cancelled.
Another special case is EXTREME over-quoting. If you post a very brief reply
to a very long message, and you quote the entire message, your message may
be cancelled. "

I think such guidelines do a very good job of reducing the signal to noise
ratio in a community. I see that Microsoft has published its own rules of
conduct, here http://www.microsoft.com/communities/conduct/default.mspx,
but these are much less extensive than the Borland ones and as such, in my
opinion, leave the newsgroups open to more 'noise'.

 

[Scott M.]

Honestly, I've seen [sic] used in various places over the years, but never
really knew exactly what it meant. I looked it up a few years back and,
while I now know what it means, I'm not sure all others would, so I don't
use it. But I do get your irony/sarcasm!

We're programmers, but not journalists.


Scott

- When paying for your groceries by check, have the check made out (minus
the dollar amount) ahead of time so as not to hold up the line.
- Please don't bring carry on luggage that has no chance of fitting into the
overhead compartments on to the plane.
- If you work in the retail or hospitality industries: I am your customer,
the reason for your work, not an interruption of it. Please treat me that
way.
- If you run a convenience store: please make a separate cash register for
lotto/scratch ticket sales (some do & thank you) so I don't have to wait 20
minutes to pay for milk because the guy/woman in front of me can't decide if
they want a quick pic or the multiplier.
- Oh, and please don't top post.

 

[Tom Leylan]

Me too

On Apr 5, 6:24 am, Peter Bromberg [C# MVP]
I'ts always enlightening to read about other people's pet peeves. While
top -
posting can be an annoying idiosyncracy, it is nowhere near as high on
my
list as the inane "Me Too" posts and posts which ask questions that
provide
so little initial information that we must assume they think we are
using the
Telepathy API.
Peter

Speaking of pet peaves...one at the top of my list is automatically
assuming someone is asking a homework question. It's pretty annoying
to see accusations going back-and-forth before everyone realizes it
really was a legitimate question in the first place.

Yeah, there can be a lot of business reasons why a programmer needs to
ask how to write a routine to figure out the first 100 prime numbers, or
something like that...

Robin S.

Just to clarify, I was being facetious.

Robin S.
p.s. I bottom-posted this because he did. I never top-post if someone has
already bottom-posted first.