[wplug] A question of etiquette

[Gregory L. Marx]

Rob Prowel wrote:

<snip>

>A: because it doesn't follow the natural flow of
>conversation
>Q: why is top-posting bad?
>A: putting one's answers before the original text they
>are responding to
>Q: what is top-posting?
>
>see how annoying it is?!
>  
>
Just to play devils-advocate, it depends ...
Since I had read the original message and knew what it was all about 
your little exercise didn't annoy me at all :-)

>don't do it...it's a good argument why lusers should
>be required to take a competency exam before being
>allowed to use the internet.  I miss the days when
>only unix geeks were allowed on the internet. :^(
>  
>
Ahhh ... Those *eliteist* days of yore ...

>just because some folks are ignorant (most have been
>told top-posting is bad but continue to do it as a way
>of thumbing their nose at the ole-timers) doesn't mean
>we should give in and jump on the bandwagon.
>  
>
This whole argument IMO reminds me of the HTML/TXT email wars of the 
early '90s.  People went nuts if you advocated the use of HTML email.  
And yet here we are 10-years later with nearly all email clients 
supporting the use of HTML email, many email newsletters only coming in 
HTML flavor, pipes to the internet getting bigger and bigger ...

Why even the darling email client of the open-source movement, 
Thunderbird, supports HTML email pretty much as a default when setting 
up an account.  And the internet itself has yet to *meltdown* as many 
predicted it would.

>in fact, make a point to scold those who top-post and
>if they don't listen then ignore their posts
>completely...plonkfiles are your friend.
>
That's certainly one way to approach the issue.
As for me, I'll take it as it comes.  Sometimes a top-post is 
problematic when I read it, other times it isn't an issue.  It all sort 
of depends on the message being responded to, and the answer provided.  
I've seen where a top-post didn't interfere with reading and 
comprehending the overall message at all.  Other times, it's a mess and 
I *do* wish it hadn't been done in that manner.

An issue I think that is worse than the *dreaded* top-posting is when 
people don't trim the message they are responding to.  For me, there's 
nothing worse than scrolling down past dozens-n-dozens of lines of text, 
only to be presented with a single word or line for an answer !  Now, 
that makes my blood boil!  And yet, technically they've done nothing wrong.

Etiquette, indeed ...

Gregory L. Marx
gregory.marx at verizon.net