Re: Can you say biggest security blunder of the 21st century to date?

Todd Allcock wrote:
>
> Ideally posting in-line makes the most sense, if responding to
> multiple points, but top posting makes perfect sense when adding a
> comment to prior comments, and frankly is much preferable, IMO, to
> the idiots who can't be bothered to trim 20 posts worth of text
> before adding their 2- cents...
>

Well, two wrongs don't make a right. <g>

Granted, I abhor (only for a moment, then I usually ignore) posts from those
who don't bother to trim quoted text. But that doesn't absolve top-posters,
who do the same thing but happen to post on top, of posting according to
long-established guidelines. Still, if you are NOT gonna trim, I'd almost go
as far as saying you might as well top-post. If you do that, and I am not
referring to you, Todd, you might get me to scroll once or twice; maybe even
thrice. But the next time I see a post from you with 182 lines, I ain't even
looking at it.

And while I am on a rant, I ain't fond of those who think they are doing
well by posting inline, but yet don't bother to separate their comments from
the quoted text. Like this:

>>>> Blah blah blah Blah blah blah Blah blah blah
>>>> Whatever Whatever Whatever Whatever Whatever
>>>> Blah blah blah Blah blah blah Blah blah blah
>>>> Whatever Whatever Whatever Whatever Whatever
I know what you mean
>>>> Blah blah blah Blah blah blah Blah blah blah
>>>> Whatever Whatever Whatever Whatever Whatever
>>>> Blah blah blah Blah blah blah Blah blah blah
>>>> Whatever Whatever Whatever Whatever Whatever


--
Mike

In article <e52Ti.11104$ce.2222@fe089.usenetserver.com>,
Todd Allcock <elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote:

> Ideally posting in-line makes the most sense, if responding to multiple
> points, but top posting makes perfect sense when adding a comment to
> prior comments, and frankly is much preferable, IMO, to the idiots who
> can't be bothered to trim 20 posts worth of text before adding their 2-
> cents...

But easy trimming is precisely why top-posting is broken in all cases.
I'll usually trim a long post down to just the most recent two or three
exchanges. When some participants bottom-post and others top-post, this
becomes much more awkward because those exchanges are at opposite ends
of the message.

> Personally, I don't care how someone posts if what they're saying adds to
> the conversation. Whining about posting styles doesn't, so by default
> Ness' post was more valuable than yours (or mine.)

--
"More than two decades later, it is hard to imagine the Revolutionary War coming
out any other way."
--George W. Bush in Martinsburg, W. Va., July 4, 2007

hh = Another sanctimonious know it all....

Do YOU actually bottom 'post' your business e-mail?

I know of no place of business where this is acceptable.
It just isn't done in business - period. It certainly would be
considered illiterate in ANY business environment.

Usenet - with proper trimming - who cares?
(just sanctimonious know it alls I guess)

The rest of this 'discussion' is just small minded crap.
So easy to hurl insults...


"-hh" <recscuba_google@huntzinger.com> wrote in message
news:1193052307.768342.238980@e9g2000prf.googlegro ups.com...
>
> A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
> Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
> A: Top-posting.
> Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
>
> Unfortunately, the bottom line is that he claims to be 'literate',
> then proves through his actions that he is not.
>
> Unfortunately, the action of crossposting to multiple groups is action
> that is inevitble to hitting upon readers who are more sensitive to
> ease of communiciation, eg, the top-posting criticism.
>
> Unfortunately, while Ness *claims* that he won't argue the point, he
> then proceeds to defend himself (again), which once again means that
> his own actions prove his words to be a lie.
>
> Unfortunately, it all reveals that Ness is nothing better than a troll
> or hypocrite.
>
> Unfortunately, Google doesn't have a button I can push to cause this
> fool's computer to literally blow up in his face.
>
> Fortunately, its a clear day and with low winds, so I'll be out scuba
> diving when Nate reads this :-)
>
>
> -hh
>
>

Valid point; business values efficiency, productivity and top posting.

Ness Net wrote:
> hh = Another sanctimonious know it all....
>
> Do YOU actually bottom 'post' your business e-mail?
>
> I know of no place of business where this is acceptable.
> It just isn't done in business - period. It certainly would be
> considered illiterate in ANY business environment.
>
> Usenet - with proper trimming - who cares?
> (just sanctimonious know it alls I guess)
>
> The rest of this 'discussion' is just small minded crap.
> So easy to hurl insults...
>
>
> "-hh" <recscuba_google@huntzinger.com> wrote in message
> news:1193052307.768342.238980@e9g2000prf.googlegro ups.com...
>
>>
>> A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
>> Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
>> A: Top-posting.
>> Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
>>
>> Unfortunately, the bottom line is that he claims to be 'literate',
>> then proves through his actions that he is not.
>>
>> Unfortunately, the action of crossposting to multiple groups is action
>> that is inevitble to hitting upon readers who are more sensitive to
>> ease of communiciation, eg, the top-posting criticism.
>>
>> Unfortunately, while Ness *claims* that he won't argue the point, he
>> then proceeds to defend himself (again), which once again means that
>> his own actions prove his words to be a lie.
>>
>> Unfortunately, it all reveals that Ness is nothing better than a troll
>> or hypocrite.
>>
>> Unfortunately, Google doesn't have a button I can push to cause this
>> fool's computer to literally blow up in his face.
>>
>> Fortunately, its a clear day and with low winds, so I'll be out scuba
>> diving when Nate reads this :-)
>>
>>
>> -hh
>>

News wrote:
> Valid point; business values efficiency, productivity and top posting.
>

You forgot ignorance. That's the primary reason it is used, even if it hurts
productivity.


--
Mike

Hardly. Only if you haven't been following the thread, in which case
you need to catch up.



Tinman wrote:
> News wrote:
>
>>Valid point; business values efficiency, productivity and top posting.
>>
>
>
> You forgot ignorance. That's the primary reason it is used, even if it hurts
> productivity.

News wrote:
> Hardly. Only if you haven't been following the thread, in which case
> you need to catch up.
>

Apparently "ignorant" applies to you too.

Don't bother replying, I've lost interest, and don't take top-posters
seriously anyway (those who do it out of spite, that is).


--
Mike

OK. But do try to catch up anyway.



Tinman wrote:

> News wrote:
>
>>Hardly. Only if you haven't been following the thread, in which case
>>you need to catch up.
>>
>
>
> Apparently "ignorant" applies to you too.
>
> Don't bother replying, I've lost interest, and don't take top-posters
> seriously anyway (those who do it out of spite, that is).
>
>

99% of the time, I want the (latest) information fast and easy
as possible. Many of the times I have already seen
the rest of the e-mails and I need only to see the latest message.

This is a primary reason why business puts the latest
message on top. It is most efficient. It is the convention ALL business
uses because of this.



"Tim Murray" <no-spam@thankyou.com> wrote in message news:blaTi.4349$b9.2923@bignews1.bellsouth.net...
>
> Have you ever tried to reconstruct a chain of events in a 5-page (when
> printed) e-mail that's all top-posted? It's absolutely silly that you have to
> start reading at the last page. Your eyes start there, on the initial
> message, reading down ... then you have to move way up, read down, then up
> again.
>
> It's silly. It's corporate business.
>

I take it you often find yourself being brought into deals late, if at all?



Tim Murray wrote:

> On Oct 22, 2007, News wrote:
>
>>Hardly. Only if you haven't been following the thread, in which case
>>you need to catch up.
>
>
> Have you ever tried to reconstruct a chain of events in a 5-page (when
> printed) e-mail that's all top-posted? It's absolutely silly that you have to
> start reading at the last page. Your eyes start there, on the initial
> message, reading down ... then you have to move way up, read down, then up
> again.
>
> It's silly. It's corporate business.

Tim Murray <no-spam@thankyou.com> wrote in
news:blaTi.4349$b9.2923@bignews1.bellsouth.net:

> On Oct 22, 2007, News wrote:
>>
>> Hardly. Only if you haven't been following the thread, in which case
>> you need to catch up.
>
> Have you ever tried to reconstruct a chain of events in a 5-page (when
> printed) e-mail that's all top-posted? It's absolutely silly that you
> have to start reading at the last page. Your eyes start there, on the
> initial message, reading down ... then you have to move way up, read
> down, then up again.
>
> It's silly. It's corporate business.
>
>

Not to get into this little pissing match more than this single post, but
the logic you use above fails to take the difference betweeen that
corporate email and this usenet post into account. The email was purposely
sent to a person or group of people that will have the opportunity to read
the previous portions of the email before a reply is made. Top posting in
that instance is of course acceptable, because the expectation is that
those recipients have already read the previous comments. There is no
corresponding rule-of-thumb here. Posts are specifically addressed to
users and it is common place for many people to start reading a thread well
after the original post is made. To read it like a book is the logical way
to present the text.

I don't expect you to agree, and I'm not going to look for a response.
You've made it clear that you're going to do what you want, not what makes
the most sense. You obviously feel like your personal likes and dislikes
should take precedent over accepted form, and you're going to do whatever
you want "just because you can." You obviously know mre than the rest of
us, right?

Ness_net wrote:

> Do you top post your business e-mail?
>


I've been sort of wondering, remember the older snailmail? Well seems to me
that mailboxes have a door/slot in the top instead of the bottom, and mail
goes on top..... Maybe top posting is based on mail instead of email?

Do you top post your business MAIL? <--- not E-mail.....

On Tue, 23 Oct 2007, Peter Pan wrote:
> I've been sort of wondering, remember the older snailmail? Well seems to me
> that mailboxes have a door/slot in the top instead of the bottom, and mail
> goes on top..... Maybe top posting is based on mail instead of email?

It's possible. Whether I top-post depends very much upon the message.

If I reply to a message and wish to address specific points of the
original message, then I edit out everything that is irrelevant to the
reply, and put my reply text immediately below the text being addressed.
This posting is an example.

Support, or other business-oriented, email is a different matter. Here,
there is a requirement to retain the complete text of the original message
(or series of messages) -- even if all you are adding is an "I agree".
In such cases, top-posting is more or less mandatory. Nobody wants to
wade through hundreds of lines of history just to get to a one-line
response -- but on the other hand there are certain contexts where you're
required to carry the history in your communications.

With all this said; in general it seems that top-posting is probably
inappropriate on most newsgroups which are "conversational" in nature.

A technical newsgroup or mailing list which carries bug reports and
support responses is a entirely different matter.

What *is* silly is the endless flaming about it. It is far more annoying
to read flames about inappropriate top-posting than it is to encounter
inappropriate top-posting.

-- Mark --

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.

"Mark Crispin" <MRC@CAC.Washington.EDU> wrote in message
news:alpine.WNT.0.9999.0710231759270.420@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washignton.EDU...
> What *is* silly is the endless flaming about it. It is far more annoying to read flames about inappropriate
> top-posting than it is to encounter inappropriate top-posting.
>
> -- Mark --
>

I'll put it in context.

I have NEVER *****ed about someone bottom posting...
Live and let live. I really don't care - I HAVE a life...

The self righteous know it alls DO tend to bug the crap out of me.
The dismissive "must be new or illiterate" garbage is so annoying.

Who the hell appointed them hall monitor...?

I have to agree, I really do not see how it matters whther one likes
to top post, as I myself prefer to do, bottom post or in line post.
I can see good and bad points in all of the methods. I would think
that for most people, like myself that are not 'usenet gurus', that
top posting would seem more natural, as it is more akin to the way
replying to an email is.

One question though.... Does anyone reading this, or the last 50 or so
posts know what the original topic was? Just checking... I think it
was about the i-phone, and them allowing 3rd party applications now.
Not really sure what that has to do with top posting, or for that
matter why it is even posted in alt.cellular.sprintpcs, which is what
I subscribed to, but who am I to complain? :-)


On Oct 23, 8:55 pm, "Ness_net" <rich...@nomore.damn.spam.nessnet.com>
wrote:
> "Mark Crispin" <M...@CAC.Washington.EDU> wrote in message
>
> news:alpine.WNT.0.9999.0710231759270.420@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washignton.EDU...
>
> > What *is* silly is the endless flaming about it. It is far more annoying to read flames about inappropriate
> > top-posting than it is to encounter inappropriate top-posting.
>
> > -- Mark --
>
> I'll put it in context.
>
> I have NEVER *****ed about someone bottom posting...
> Live and let live. I really don't care - I HAVE a life...
>
> The self righteous know it alls DO tend to bug the crap out of me.
> The dismissive "must be new or illiterate" garbage is so annoying.
>
> Who the hell appointed them hall monitor...?