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Trivial Request (Community)
Trivial Request // Communityjust inJul 22, 2003, 3:20am
Hi folks...
I know this is trivial and in all likelihood have no effect, but here's hoping! When some posters reply to posts, they put their response underneath the previous post. Agent1, Bowen, Kah and TheMask are a few of those posters that do this. This means that in a lot of cases you have to scroll the page down to read what they wrote. For me personally - I tend to spend just a second or two on getting a gist of what the person wrote, to evaluate whether I want to go on to read all of their post. If I can't get a gist of it in that time I'll move on to the next post. Could people try to keep their replies at the top of the post please? Regards, Justin syntaxJul 22, 2003, 4:13am
Yea, I never understood posting under the quotes. Just makes everything a
pain in the ass to look for and read. -- - Syntax - http://www.swcity.net http://forum.swcity.net [View Quote] bowenJul 22, 2003, 5:30am
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USENET (n)etiquette. Standard practice for all denizens of USENET...
well most of them. It's actually easier to follow the thread to bottom post (and is generally frowned upon to top post - most often to not you'll get flamed for it). Not to mention a lot of bottom posters break a post up -- and reply inline -- to make it easier for others just entering the thread. -- --Bowen-- BTW here's a cute joke that tells you how people feel about top-posting (with credits to "Gordon" on apihna): A: Top posting! Q: What is the most irritating thing on Usenet? (http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/how-to-post.html) starfleetJul 22, 2003, 5:42am
This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
------=_NextPart_000_0018_01C35034.EE1E7200 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable This NG is NOT USESET!!!! ------=_NextPart_000_0018_01C35034.EE1E7200 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=3DContent-Type content=3D"text/html; = charset=3Diso-8859-1"> <META content=3D"MSHTML 5.50.4916.2300" name=3DGENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY> <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D4>This = NG =20 is <FONT color=3D#ff0000>NOT</FONT> =20 USESET!!!!</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2></FONT> </DIV></BODY></HTML> ------=_NextPart_000_0018_01C35034.EE1E7200-- bowenJul 22, 2003, 6:51am
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Yeah, and? America isn't England, yet it's national language is
English. (Spare me the dialect differences in the facade of "American isn't English" -- British English is a completely different dialect with it's own slang in comparison to American English. The same is true for Australian English, Indian English, Canadian English, etc... I digress though) Newsgroup netiquette is shared with USENET and private newsgroups no matter where you go. Just like you don't post binary in text only newsgroups... you know. Traditions are traditions. Just because Outlook puts it at the top doesn't mean it's true or acceptable. Netscape and Mozilla compatible newsreaders put it at the bottom anyways. -- --Bowen-- No of SETI units returned: 41 Processing time: 31 days, 9 hours. (Total hours: 753) www.setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu agent1Jul 22, 2003, 12:13pm
I don't really have a preference and just do what other people in the thread have done so it doesn't get confusing. Some people prefer to add their replies at the bottom and their preference is no less valid than yours.
[View Quote] -- -Agent1 kahJul 22, 2003, 12:57pm
"just in" <anon at no.spam..com> wrote in
news:3f1cc986 at server1.Activeworlds.com: > I know this is trivial and in all likelihood have no effect, but > here's hoping! > > When some posters reply to posts, they put their response underneath > the previous post. Agent1, Bowen, Kah and TheMask are a few of those > posters that do this. This means that in a lot of cases you have to > scroll the page down to read what they wrote. > > For me personally - I tend to spend just a second or two on getting a > gist of what the person wrote, to evaluate whether I want to go on to > read all of their post. If I can't get a gist of it in that time I'll > move on to the next post. > > Could people try to keep their replies at the top of the post please? Bottom-posting, as Bowen said, is the standard on USENET, and in newsgroups in general. If you think about it, it's much more logical to bottom-post, as you (assuming a Western audience, which we definitely are) read from the top downward, so having the history of the thread above the reply is easier to understand. A lot of newsreaders provide a function to skip the quoted text, anyway. MSOE probably doesn't, but MSOE belongs in a trash can :-)) I see your point, especially since there is a lot of top-posting in here, that you get used to it, but why not get used to bottom-posting instead? KAH rossyboyJul 22, 2003, 1:33pm
My newsreader puts it at the top :/
I agree it's (it is...you used it's instead of its O_O) annoying having to scroll through the whole reply. Unless you're not looking at the posts in little tree thingys... "bowen" <Bowen at andras.net> wrote this (news:3f1cfb19$2 at server1.Activeworlds.com) in community on 22 Jul 2003: [View Quote] goober kingJul 22, 2003, 2:40pm
Because while bottom-posting may make more sense from a continuous
reading standpoint, it's very counter-intuitive when you move to the next post in the thread and the first thing you see is the post you just read. As far as ease-of-use is concerned, top-posting just makes more sense, since you don't have to scroll down to find out what the person said. If you really want to trace the history of the thread, you can always scroll down to follow the quoted thread underneath the new post. Oh, and posting inline is about the worst possible practice you could use in a discussion as far as I'm concerned. Not only does it almost always sidetrack the discussion, but it becomes hard to tell who wrote what where when after a while. >_< [View Quote] -- Goober King Top-feeder awnews at awnews.org bowenJul 22, 2003, 4:06pm
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Actually, it's not. It is a very common practice on USENET (especially
in newsgroup like alt.php or alt.comp.lang.cpp), for obvious reasons. -- --Bowen-- No of SETI units returned: 41 Processing time: 31 days, 9 hours. (Total hours: 753) www.setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu goober kingJul 22, 2003, 6:05pm
Just because people on USENET do it does not make it acceptable. It's an
atrocious practice that has been the root cause of hundreds of hijacked threads and flame wars in these and other forums for years. You can't interrupt someone while they're talking in real life to argue every point they make, as the discussion would never go anywhere. This is how it works in the newsgroups as well, as most inline threads wind up nitpicking over some obscure detail that never had anything to do with the original discussion in the first place. As far as I'm concerned, if you can't comment on the general idea of a person's post, or at least sum up their points in a couple paragraphs, then don't bother commenting at all. [View Quote] -- Goober King Refraining from comment awnews at awnews.org bowenJul 22, 2003, 6:34pm
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What is your point? You can do it with words because they're _not_
spoken. Just like your teacher can write between the lines to tell you to not do this, or to do that. Same principle. Although you can go "When you said blah blah blah... I think that it's really yadda yadda yadda... and then when you said yakkity yakkity yak... I thought it should've been dingly dingly doo." It's the _same_ thing as breaking up someone's post. > As far as I'm concerned, if you can't comment on the general idea of a > person's post, or at least sum up their points in a couple paragraphs, > then don't bother commenting at all. We're not writing synopses of newspaper articles... we're discussing. Discussions are exact and to the point, not on general idea of the whole pile of donky crap. If you don't want to read it, don't... again... I don't have to comment just like you don't have to read. -- --Bowen-- No of SETI units returned: 41 Processing time: 31 days, 9 hours. (Total hours: 753) www.setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu just inJul 23, 2003, 4:09am
Okay - Generally speaking I like to follow stardard practice too, except
where it becomes antiquated or detrimental. It would be nice if you could break USENET (n)etiquette for the AW newsgroups, for the various reasons given by myself and others in this thread, but if you still decide not to I will not debate the issue. Note though if you do continue to bottom post I will not see any of your posts where I have to scroll down to read it. Regards, Justin [View Quote] kahJul 23, 2003, 9:26am
"goober king" <awnews at awnews.org> wrote in news:3f1d98f5
at server1.Activeworlds.com: > Just because people on USENET do it does not make it acceptable. It's an > atrocious practice that has been the root cause of hundreds of hijacked > threads and flame wars in these and other forums for years. You can't > interrupt someone while they're talking in real life to argue every > point they make, as the discussion would never go anywhere. This is how > it works in the newsgroups as well, as most inline threads wind up > nitpicking over some obscure detail that never had anything to do with > the original discussion in the first place. > > As far as I'm concerned, if you can't comment on the general idea of a > person's post, or at least sum up their points in a couple paragraphs, > then don't bother commenting at all. There's quite a difference between having a spoken conversation and a written discussion. It's just not possible to interrupt anyone in written like you describe. I usually don't use inline posting, but sometimes I do, in long posts or in posts with included data, etc, to highlight what I'm replying to. It avoids confusion, especially in technical newsgroups where there might be chunks of included data pertaining to the post (for example the PHP newsgroups Bowen mentioned, where you often have to highlight a piece of sourcecode with a problem in it). I don't see why we are having this discussion here, it's been debated countless times on USENET, and the conclusion is obvious; bottom posting is best, inline posting is fine. KAH kahJul 23, 2003, 9:34am
Please make an exception for this one and scroll down...
"just in" <anon at no.spam..com> wrote in news:3f1e26aa at server1.Activeworlds.com: > Okay - Generally speaking I like to follow stardard practice too, > except where it becomes antiquated or detrimental. > > It would be nice if you could break USENET (n)etiquette for the AW > newsgroups, for the various reasons given by myself and others in this > thread, but if you still decide not to I will not debate the issue. > Note though if you do continue to bottom post I will not see any of > your posts where I have to scroll down to read it. You aren't considering that you're being rather egoistical. It may seem bothering to you to scroll down, but you aren't considering it could be bothersome for others to top post. My newsreader, being a good one that respects USENET standards, is set up to bottom post. To top post I'd have to scroll up, and hit my return key twice. To read my bottom posts in MSOE you only have to press PageDn, action the wheel on your mouse or drag a scrollbar down. If you don't want to read my posts, fine, don't. It's silly to ignore people because they're using valid, proven to be best posting style, but okay. It's not really our problem. KAH goober kingJul 23, 2003, 10:45am
How can it be considered "best" when it's all just a question of
preference? Any decent newsreader (OE included, if I'm not mistaken) can be set up to either top *or* bottom post, so the idea that one way is somehow universally better than the other is ludicrous. Each method has its own set of pros and cons, so it all depends on what you feel is more important. If you think following some antiquated USENET standard is more important than making it easier for other readers to see you wrote, then having us spout our opinions at you obviously isn't going to change your mind. [View Quote] -- Goober King Better from top to bottom awnews at awnews.org bowenJul 23, 2003, 12:00pm
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As far as I'm aware, OE does _not_ have an option to switch from top to
bottom. If it does, it's sadly hidden in thousands of lines of registry entries. I think pressing a button is fairly easy, how about you? Easier for you then for us to switch it to top posting for this sole newsgroup. -- --Bowen-- No of SETI units returned: 41 Processing time: 31 days, 9 hours. (Total hours: 753) www.setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu goober kingJul 23, 2003, 2:38pm
*smirk* Now who's being egotistical? You only have to switch to top
posting once, whereas we have to scroll down every time you post. You are one person, we are many. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. You lose. :) And as for any other newsgroups you may frequent, I highly doubt they're *that* anal about top vs. bottom posting, especially with the wide proliferation of OE users who have no choice in the matter. If they can put up with it, so can you. [View Quote] -- Goober King Megalomaniacal awnews at awnews.org bowenJul 23, 2003, 2:43pm
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Who's the one who complains about arguing a moot point, every time, but
argues one of _the_ most argued points on the internet? > And as for any other newsgroups you may frequent, I highly doubt they're > *that* anal about top vs. bottom posting, especially with the wide > proliferation of OE users who have no choice in the matter. If they can > put up with it, so can you. Right, try top posting in any USENET newsgroup, see how anal they get. And you think _I'm_ bad. Ask anyone who's posted on USENET. -- --Bowen-- No of SETI units returned: 41 Processing time: 31 days, 9 hours. (Total hours: 753) www.setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu goober kingJul 23, 2003, 3:55pm
One more reason to not worry about USENET standards, then. :)
Don't get me wrong, I can understand why some are in place (i.e. Not posting in HTML, not attaching binaries, etc.), but some are just too trivial to pop a blood vessel over. :P [View Quote] -- Goober King How about USElessNET? awnews at awnews.org bowenJul 23, 2003, 3:56pm
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I'm wondering why you are then.
-- --Bowen-- No of SETI units returned: 41 Processing time: 31 days, 9 hours. (Total hours: 753) www.setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu sw chrisJul 23, 2003, 4:33pm
Bowen, your defense is just as bad as his.
Addressing everyone: Get it through your thick skulls, everyone. This ain't USENET. I'll do any dang thing I want as long as I don't annoy other people and/or it's against the newsgroup charter. That's the law in this here town, stranger. Chris [View Quote] bowenJul 23, 2003, 4:35pm
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Duh, I know that. What I'm saying in my own little "mine is annoying to
you and yours is annoying to me little speech" is ... exactly that. Top posting annoys me, bottom and inline posting annoys him. -- --Bowen-- No of SETI units returned: 41 Processing time: 31 days, 9 hours. (Total hours: 753) www.setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu |
