Gentoo Archives: gentoo-desktop

From: Willie Wong <wwong@×××××××××.EDU>
To: gentoo-desktop@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-desktop] [WAY OT] On Top Posting
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 17:02:30
Message-Id: 20050819165900.GB19059@princeton.edu
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-desktop] Unsubscribe by John Manko
1 On Fri, Aug 19, 2005 at 12:38:17PM -0400, John Manko wrote:
2 > What's the big deal? Is top posting bad posting practice?
3 >
4
5 Now, I speak from folklore, as I am too young to personally experience
6 the phenomenon, but the story goes like this:
7
8 In the ancient times, all was good. Men were men, women were women,
9 small furry creatures from alpha centauri were small furry creatures
10 from alpha centauri.
11
12 There was, then, usenet.
13
14 Men were good on usenet back then. (there weren't women). People
15 posted cordially, but flamed when necessary. And most important of
16 all, because usenet is like multiplayer email, to keep everything in
17 perspective, people posted while quoting the posts they reply to.
18 And specific questions were answered by specific answers set in a
19 style similar to what we see on FAQs.
20
21 And then AOL happened.
22
23 The default client in AOL quotes the entire parent BUT leaves a
24 dashed line above it and two blank lines above that, with the
25 blinking cursors sitting at the very top. The washed masses ignored
26 the etiquette of the unwashed elite and started Top-posting. This
27 soon leads to posting without even quoting, because people think:
28 "why waste the bandwidth on all these unnecessary text below here".
29
30 Sooner or later, usenet became a wasteland because people cannot
31 communicate with each other because words were no longer put in
32 perspective. And flames abound, trolls came out of hiding, people
33 started calling each others nazis....
34
35 Now you get the picture.
36
37 But with that said, in personal communications, I often still
38 top-reply, because: 1) people are starting to use Gmail 2) I think I
39 can rely on the two people I actually talk to privately to remember
40 what he/she just said twenty minutes ago 3) Scrolling through personal
41 emails like that is a bitch.
42
43 Best,
44
45 W
46 --
47 McDonald's Corollary to Murphy's Law:
48 In any given set of circumstances, the proper
49 course of action is determined by subsequent events.
50 Sortir en Pantoufles: up 7 days, 19:52
51 --
52 gentoo-desktop@g.o mailing list

Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-desktop] [WAY OT] On Top Posting Adam Shelley <ashelley@××××××××××.com>
Re: [gentoo-desktop] [WAY OT] On Top Posting John Manko <jmanko@×××××××××.com>