[ale] OT: top-posting

[Michael B. Trausch]

On Wed, 7 Jan 2009 13:35:16 -0500
George Carless <kafka at antichri.st> wrote:

> I think it's fairly obnoxious to be sending people lengthy, and
> frankly non-scientific and dated, information to try to convince them
> of the error of their ways in this regard--it's the kind of attitude
> that gives us a reputation of being elitists who're far-removed from
> the real world.

There has long been sound reason for trimming and posting of message
replies.  When everyone in the group does it _correctly_, it's much
more of a pleasure to read.  You don't have to jump back and forth in
a single message, and (once again, assuming that it's done _correctly_)
you do not have to jump around the thread in order to retrieve lost
context to the conversation, either.

The biggest point is that top posters are almost never trimmers, and you
wind up with 25 lines saying "--- Original Message ---" or similar, all
with included message bodies, which is *highly* irritating because it
tends to get *really* long.  Not everyone has what we'd consider to be
high-speed Internet, even still in today's world.  Moreso when you're
posting to mailing lists that are very widely read (say, the LKML, or
various development lists, or various other topical discussion lists
that are running on mailing list software) or posting to Usenet.

The rule of netiquette was created for a reason, and it's simply that,
netiquette.  Top-posting, IMHO, is very much like going to a nice
restaurant in the US, ordering beer and ribs, and then belching,
farting, and wiping your hands on your shirt and/or pants throughout
the meal.  It's just plain rude.  Now, granted, that's not very
scientific, but then again, neither is meatspace etiquette.

	--- Mike

-- 
My sigfile ran away and is on hiatus.
http://www.trausch.us/
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