[Artemisia] Sorry, can't let the dog alone....

[yumitori]

On Jan 24, 2008 11:03 AM, Lord Godwin FitzGilbert de Strigoil
<archergodwin at cableone.net> wrote:
> What is so terribly wrong with top posting?
>
> I can see it, if nobody trims the previous posts, but isn't that the case no
> matter where you start your response?
>
> Godwin

So there you go. Really, I think following the link I provided and
doing your own research would have been easier on those of you who
don't see the value in following netiquette. But since you didn't
perhaps this example will make it just a little clearer how all of
your top-posting looks to those of us who are desperately trying to
make heads or tails out of your writing, and what exactly it's
supposed to be in response to.

For this list the important part of this discussion is that people
need to be trimming their posts. Period. I don't want to see the same
quoted material onto the bottom of message after message, stretching
on to infinity as each subsequent response is just tacked on at the
top, repeating the whole sorry mess over and over. Really. Think of
the children. Heck, think of the folks getting their messages in
digest form who have to somehow find the new posts in amongst all of
the incessant quoting and re-re-quoting. Or if an appeal to compassion
doesn't hold sway, think of yourself if you don't start trimming and I
change your account over to Digest myself.

So why *do* many if not most e-mail programs start the cursor at the
top? Well, I can certainly think of various reasons, not the least of
which is you have to start somewhere. And since you're going to go to
the bottom of the post to add your timeless prose, you are going to
scroll down through the bits you want to quote and the bits you want
to trim. You *are* going to trim all those extraneous sections aren't
you? After all, I read bitch after bitch about how scrolling to the
bottom of a post to read new material is so difficult. It's only
difficult if the person who wrote the post didn't follow basic
courtesy and trimmed out everything except the bit in the message they
are responding to so that their comments are in context.

Then there's the ever popular 'argument' that if we're not all
supposed to top-post then why does the e-mail program put the cursor
at the top? You know, I'd love to see some proper medieval-style
university classes at some of the collegiums around here. Stuff like
logic and rhetoric and such. It's not really anyone's fault that they
have a hard time composing a valid argument if they have never been
taught to do so, or even realized that such a skill is a useful and
necessary skill that actually has to be learned.

So now that I've mentioned that this whole system developed over time
by experienced Internet users (you read that part before you read
this, didn't you?), I'm sure I'm going to hear from some dissenting
voice who will be all like, 'I've been posting on mailing lists since
before ARPANET existed and I *always* top-post!' Yeah, well in the
words of one commentator on the value of bottom-posting, 'You're a
wanker!' It's folks like you that led to the creation of formal
netiquette guides and long discussions on what is and is not cool in
the first place. Just because you *still* don't get it doesn't mean it
isn't right and proper.

You just start typing merrily away and leave all of the work to
someone else, in this case the poor schmucks who have to figure out
where the messages start and where they end and what to read first and
what to read second and so forth until they can finally understand the
two pages of stuff you quote just to add a slightly verbose version of
'Me too!' to the top of it all. Good going, pushing all of the effort
off onto the folks reading your post.

And it doesn't make sense to the many, many list moderators and
long-time users of 'the internets'  who have had to deal with the
issue down through the years. Proper behavior doesn't just spring up
because someone declares themself an etiquette expert and starts
making up rules. These rules develop out of experience and seeing what
works and what doesn't. Top-posting works for the person replying
because they don't need to do anything but toss off a quick response
without bothering to look at, much less trim any of the previous
messages they are quoting.

I mean, how the heck do *you* read a book? Do you go to the last
chapter and read it first, then the second to the last and read it
next and so forth? No? Why ever not? Oh, because if books were
organized that way it would be a huge pain in the dorsal armor? So why
should you prefer to read your list messages that way? And I
particularly like the 'argument' that when you pick up a book you are
in the middle of you don't re-read all the bits that you have already
read. Um, no you don't. But you might scan through them to make sure
you find out where to start up again and perhaps to refresh your
memory. And one thing I know *I* don't do, at least, is open to the
first page expecting it to have new material each time. I'm going to
talk briefly about logic later. (Or have I done so already? Boy, this
is confusing even me.) This is a fine example of a failed argument in
my opinion. Arguments that top-posting is less confusing simply don't
make any sense to me.

By now maybe you've figured something's wrong with with my response.
At least I hope so. I'm betting on the intelligence of those reading
this, who will not just mindlessly scan through a long missive like
this and blow most of it off, even though it's answering the exact
question they have been asking. Or read it and think, 'Boy, that
Yumitori's response is completely messed up. I thought he said he
could write.' So now you have a real life example of just how bloody
confusing top-posting can be. Scrolling down and up and up and down
and trying to find out where things start and then where they go from
there. Fun, ain't it? At least by now maybe you've figured out what I
doing.

Of course, that requires that I keep doing the same thing, which
top-posting doesn't. You have to spend time and energy sorting out
which messages come before which other ones, and which were sent at
the same time and so aren't in the same flow. That's one of the main
points of bottom-posting, to keep the flow.

In this case, the system is bottom-posting. It's the older, more
established one, and after all, isn't this a mailing list for folks
into really old things? In which case following the older system
should be second nature. Or one would hope. Hey, you know that these
rules of on-line etiquette are pretty much as old as the Society is?
If you're not going to follow them because they are logical, perhaps
you'll follow them because they are tradition. Whatcha think?

After all, this a research-based organization and it's only reasonable
to expect that folks are able to do a little poking around on their
own to find answers. I know there's a lot of folks whose first
response to seeing a reference to something they don't understand is
to post a questions asking for a definition. My first response is to
pull up a search engine and google the subject. In this case all you
have to do is talk like a late-night comedy sketch Frankenstein and
put in the words 'top posting bad!' to get more than enough
explanations as to why veterans of the Internet and Usenet would
really, really, really wish that folks would get with the program and
use one system.

You know, when this whole topic blew up out of a simple 'thank you'  I
posted to an individual who both trimmed their reply and
bottom-posted, the first thing I did was link to the Google search on
Internet etiquette (or 'netiquette') and suggested that folks with any
questions could do a little of their own research to see what others
have been saying about top-posting and why it is almost universally
panned among list moderators. I even gave the link so you didn't have
to actually expend the effort to go to Google and enter words
yourself. I'll do it again, this time as a tinyurl so you can get
started checking out the links. < http://tinyurl.com/27ozyv >

-- 
Ron/yumitori

Not all who wander are lost,
http://www.geocaching.com/

Loyal worshiper of Ashtara (Cha Cha Cha!)
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/index.php