[OT] posting

[Harlan Grove]

Exactly ... no great problem.

Yes, I could figure you didn't care. No problem until the ISPs set limits,
which might never happen.

Since replying in context usually isn't important to you, why not take
advantage of Outlook Express's (the newsreader you used to post your message
to which this is a response) setting that dispenses with including original
messages? Tools > Options, Send tab, uncheck Include message in reply.

 

[Harlan Grove]

Top-posting is no lazy per se Harlan.

Stipulated. But the lack of snipping the quoted preceding thread IS lazy.

As I keep pointing out to bottom-poster evangelists, my experience of
people who use NGs regularly (and let's be honest, to those that don't,
the argument is immaterial) is that they follow a thread by monitoring it,
reading responses as they come in, just as you are doing here. As such,
when a response comes in, I don't want to have to scroll through a whole
heap of responses, counter responses etc. that I have already read. I want
to get to the meat of what is being said, and by top-posting, that aids me
enormously. . . .

So don't quote anything. It's a simple Outlook Express setting. With nothing
quoted, you could adopt the logically valid (if meaningless) position that
you're both top-posting and bottom-posting.

And it's quite clear the universe of newsgroups you follow is pretty
limited. Granted top-posting is most common in the Office newsgroups, but
it's infrequent in the microsoft.* programming language and Windows
newsgroups, and rarer still in true USENET newsgroups. What should one make
of that? That people who only know how to use Office can't figure out how to
use newsgroups and/or newsreaders properly? Certainly a possibility.

. . . If I do need to refer back, I can easily scroll down, or read the
previous postings. I see no merits in bottom posting at all.

Context is everything. So, like small children, instant gratification is
essential for you?

As far as I can tell, most of your argument relates to not snipping posts,
just adding a response to the responses already accumulated in the thread
to date. This is not a peculiarity of a top-posting, it is just as easy to
do in bottom posting.

Just as EASY, perhaps. Just as COMMON?

While there are isolated instances of bottom-posters failing to snip
anything from the full quoted preceding thread, snipping is far more
commonly done by bottom-posters than top-posters.

I agree with your dismay at this, but I own up to doing it myself, and
quite honestly top-posting makes it almost irrelevant (even helpful if you
do want to look back in the thread). . . .

Helpful how? The response is out of context.

But guess what, you do it yourself, nobody is perfect.

Yes, when the message to which I'm replying is brief, I don't bother
snipping. Provide a link to a thread in which I responded to a message of 20
or more lines without snipping some of it.

None of us may be perfect, but some of us are much closer to it than others.

 

[Bob Phillips]

See that is the big problem with you Harlan. You can't just make your point
objectively, you have to resort to petty insults. It makes so many of your
posts unreadable, including this one which I stopped once it was clear that
you feel the need to insult anyone who disagrees with you.

If you were as principled as you make out, you would ignore trolls like
Aaron Kemp, you wouldn't bother answering every post, you would resort to
insults with everybody who doesn't roll over and die in the face of your
tirades. But you are not, you do, and you always will.

 

[Harlan Grove]

See that is the big problem with you Harlan. You can't just make
your point objectively, you have to resort to petty insults. . . .

....

To me you began the insults this time around by claiming I was
inconsistent about snipping. From my perspective, that's an insult.

Not that this proves anything, but if you think I'm insulting, try top-
posting in newsgroups in which bottom-positing is adamantly
recommended. That's the environment in which I learned how to post.

If you were as principled as you make out, you would ignore trolls
like Aaron Kemp, . . .

Nah!

As I've stated in those threads, it's entertainment. To each his own.

. . . you wouldn't bother answering every post, . . .

I don't. There are several branches in which I let him have the last
word. He's not wrong about everything.

. . . you would resort to insults with everybody who doesn't roll
over and die in the face of your tirades. . . .

....

You meant wouldn't.

I START very few arguments. I intend to FINISH any I join.

There's an objective measure in re posting: snipping unnecessary bits
from the quoted previous thread. At the very least there's no
compelling need for multiple copies of the same respondents'
signatures, but few if any top posters remove even those. Laziness is
the exclusive guide to that aspect of top-posting 'style'. You can
claim it's expedient, but you won't convince me it's a virtue.

 

[Stan Brown]

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 12:47:37 +0100 from Bob Phillips

I don't want to have to scroll through a whole heap of
responses, counter responses etc. that I have already read.

And if people would bother to trim their quotes, you wouldn't have
to.

(like this)