 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
| HomeDiscussion GroupsGeneral TopicsCat AnecdotesHealth and BehaviorRescue CatKB.com Contact UsLink To UsSearch & Site Map |
Cat Forum / Cat Anecdotes / February 20078: Top Posting
Top Posting by David Stevenson The question was asked: >Please excuse my ignorance but I visit occasionally and read the mail and >have contributed a little, but have now noticed someone saying that >top-posting is considered rude Can someone please explain what this is I do >not know the expression and I would hate to be classed as rude by doing this >inadvertantly Many thanks Pat Jeffo The best way is to answer the post underneath as here. Top posting means putting the answer first. With a post the length of yours it really makes little difference, but some posts are quite long, especially when there is an original, then an answer, then a further comment. If people follow Netiquette correctly they will delete all the earlier posts except enough so you can see what they are replying to, and then answer thereafter. There are three reasons I do not like top posting. First, top posters tend never to snip, never to shorten that to which they reply. So people whose download time costs money are wasting money downloading enormous lengths of stuff they have already read. Second, and connected, is that you do not know with top posting whether someone has written something else later on, so do you waste your time going through it? Neither of these would matter if top posters snipped, but they tend not to. Third, it is much easier to read things in order, and you can see with good Netiquette how easily it flows. Let me give you a made-up example: Mary wrote: >Sam wrote: >>Henry wrote: >>>Elizabeth wrote: >>>How do I stop my cat eating the furniture? >>Have you tried putting a velcro cover on? >That's ok if you do not have children, but they tear the velcro - what >then? Try guaranteed child-proof super-velcro: I have been using it ever since I had my fourth child - and my sixth cat. It reads easily and logically, which does not happen if you put the answer first - especially when there are further comments on the same thread. *BUT* not snipping is a far worse disease. If you read a five screen article, and you like it, it is the height of selfishness to leave the whole five screens while you add a single line to say how much you like it - and it does not matter which end you put it, it is still very unfair on others and shows a lack of respect for your fellow posters. You should leave in a paragraph or two, not more, unless you are specifically referring to bits. Then you leave in the bits to which you refer, and reply just after them. So, please snip, that is vital, please do not top post, but that is not so important. Further articles on the subject may be found at http://www.ptialaska.net/~kmorgan/nquote.html news.newusers.questions: Quoting Style in Newsgroup Postings http://www.usenet.org.uk/ukpost.html#s3 Configuring your news reader to post to uk.*: How and why to quote properly by Alex D. Baxter http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/quote.html FAQ of proper quoting: Questions from Usenet and Prof. Timo Salmi's answers http://st-www.cs.uiuc.edu/users/chai/writing/trim-posts.html Trim Your Posts by Brad Appleton Further items on Netiquette may be found at http://blakjak.com/gen_men2.htm This document may also be found at http://blakjak.com/gey_stv0.htm  SignatureDavid Stevenson Storypage: http://blakjak.com/sty_menu.htm Liverpool, England, UK <cat2@blakjak.com> Emails welcome Nanki Poo: SI O+W B 12 Y L+ W++ C+ I T+ A- E H++ V- F Q P+ B+ PA+ PL SC Minke: SI W+Cp B 3 Y L W+ C++ I T A- E H++ V++ F- Q- P B PA+ PL+ SC- Substitute .org for .com else URLs/eddresses will fail this year > There are three reasons I do not like top posting. > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > Neither of these would matter if top posters snipped, but they tend > not to. I do not find that bottom posters snip. I find it frustrating to scroll down long messages to have a two sentence reply. I am guilty of top posting and I do it on purpose because I don't like scrolling down so far every time. I will snip more. Susan M Otis and Chester > I do not find that bottom posters snip. I find it frustrating to scroll > down long messages to have a two sentence reply. Here, here! I feel the same way. How come the people who complain about top-posting all the time never complain about this? I can't stand scrolling through a 3-page quoted post (sometimes several quoted posts, with nested levels of ">"s), only to find "LOL!" at the end. Aaaarrrgh! Snipping is a *good* thing - it is not rude or disrespectful to the person you're quoting. Remember, everyone's already seen their post. And it's very considerate of the people who have to pay for their email and newsgroup downloads. Joyce -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Because the discussion does not flow in a logical order. Why should someone NOT top post? > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > > Because the discussion does not flow in a logical order. > > Why should someone NOT top post? I top post only when I'm very tired. Otherwise I keep to netiquette. Tweed >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Reading quoted text over and over. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Reading quoted text over and over. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Reading quoted text over and over. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Reading quoted text over and over. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Reading quoted text over and over. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Reading quoted text over and over. >>>>>>>>>>>>>Reading quoted text over and over. >>>>>>>>>>>Reading quoted text over and over. >>>>>>>>Reading quoted text over and over. >>>>>>Reading quoted text over and over. >>>>>Reading quoted text over and over. >>>>Reading quoted text over and over. >>>Reading quoted text over and over. >>Reading quoted text over and over. >Reading quoted text over and over. Q: What happens when people bottom post? SignatureChristopher A. Young You can't shout down a troll. You have to starve them. . : -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- : : Because the discussion does not flow in a logical order. : : Why should someone NOT top post? >>>>>Reading quoted text over and over. > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > >Q: What happens when people bottom post? A: Either they snip to leave the amount that makes it readable and on point as I have done OR They are just as much a pest as people who top post. If people follow Netiquette it is helpful and makes life much easier for others. But that is *all* of it, not some. Of course bottom posting together with not snipping is just as bad as top posting. SignatureDavid Stevenson Storypage: http://blakjak.com/sty_menu.htm Liverpool, England, UK <cat2@blakjak.com> Emails welcome Nanki Poo: SI O+W B 12 Y L+ W++ C+ I T+ A- E H++ V- F Q P+ B+ PA+ PL SC Minke: SI W+Cp B 3 Y L W+ C++ I T A- E H++ V++ F- Q- P B PA+ PL+ SC- Substitute .org for .com else URLs/eddresses will fail this year It's wild that people think you should follow arbitrary rules that you had no input in making. But then, there are some people who feel most comfortable with rules. Rhonda >>>>>>Reading quoted text over and over. >>>>> [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > for others. But that is *all* of it, not some. Of course bottom > posting together with not snipping is just as bad as top posting. >It's wild that people think you should follow arbitrary rules that you >had no input in making. [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] >> for others. But that is *all* of it, not some. Of course bottom >> posting together with not snipping is just as bad as top posting. Of course, when rules make life easier for other people, there are always some who like to ignore such rules. SignatureDavid Stevenson Storypage: http://blakjak.com/sty_menu.htm Liverpool, England, UK <cat2@blakjak.com> Emails welcome Nanki Poo: SI O+W B 12 Y L+ W++ C+ I T+ A- E H++ V- F Q P+ B+ PA+ PL SC Minke: SI W+Cp B 3 Y L W+ C++ I T A- E H++ V++ F- Q- P B PA+ PL+ SC- Substitute .org for .com else URLs/eddresses will fail this year > If people follow Netiquette it is helpful and makes life much easier > for others. But that is *all* of it, not some. Of course bottom > posting together with not snipping is just as bad as top posting. One thing I've noticed is that a lot of GUI email programs make trimming posts a little bit of a pain. It's not extremely difficult, but when I use something like Eudora or Outlook, I do find it just a tiny bit more of a hassle to trim posts. And if you're reading email or newsgroup posts a lot, and posting a lot, it adds up and gets pretty tiresome. So I understand why a lot of people just end up top-posting. Often, in places such as at work where everyone has Outlook, the norm is to quote the entire previous exchange, and top-post the response. Those programs also offer some cues, such as color, to set off the top-posted response from the prior message. In a text-only medium such as rpca, those cues are lost, or harder to see. I do all my email and newsgroup-reading on a remote Linux shell account, and use vi as the text editor for both. This makes trimming and interleaving responses extremely easy for me. I can do everything with the keyboard, so there's none of the back-and-forth between the keyboard and mouse that gets on my nerves so much. But perhaps because most people don't use these tools, norms are changing since the early days when all of the Internet was text-only. And while I hardly see this as the end of civilization as I know it, it has required some adjustment on my part. I'm happy to report that I seem to have weathered the change intact. :) And I'd still prefer to see a one-liner response top-posted than at the bottom of 3 screenfuls. Actually, I find all the weird characters that Microsoft products insert into posts a lot more of a pain than top-posting. I can't stand getting posts full of "???" and other non-ascii characters that my text-only universe doesn't recognize. And don't get me started on HTML... :) Joyce Hahaha! Love it. Most times it's a lot of work to read bottom postings. All of those arrows drive me crazy. I just want to read the new message and go on. Rhonda >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Reading quoted text over and over. > [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > > Q: What happens when people bottom post? A: So you can read the new text, and decide if you really need to scroll down to see the question. Q: Why should you top post?
|
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2008 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.