I say - bring back the 1970's

Another API commercial:



I say bring it on.

Life was better back then. Didn't have to deal with all the
geo-political-muslim-security shit happening today.

 

Your beloved Chrysler was a lot less safe back then... (Of course that
applies to just about all cars.)

DAS

 

Get a real newsreader and stop top-posting. It is like having the Answer
first, then the Question.
BTW, the Dodge Dart/Plymouth Valiant were some of the safest cars ever.

 

DAS is a notorious top-poaster.

If that's not bad enough, he's also a full-quoter.

Both traits or habbits are common for e-mail, as evolved or originated
by the default behavior of Micro$haft e-mail clients (Outlook and IE).
Once that became wide-spread by usenet newbies (and especially by google
"groupers") they carried over that bad e-mail habbit to their usenet
replies.

They top-poasters don't understand how disruptive top-posting can be.
They might as well just delete any quoted material that follows if they
don't reference it properly (or at all) in their post. But they're too
lazy or inconsiderate to do that. There are many examples of horrendous
full-quoting on usenet, unfortunately.

The art of proper usenet message composition is disappearing fast, as
evidenced by DAS.

There were just fewer cars on the road back 30, 40, 50 years ago, and
probably fewer miles driven per car per year. There's too many people
on this planet today, and that's the source of all the turmoil we're
having (but you can't tell that to christians / catholics).

I survived many a ride as a child in the front or back seat of my
parents 1967 Dodge - not even a child seat if I remember correctly, not
even a shoulder belt (that didn't happen until the early to mid 1970's)
- and (sometimes) no seat belt at all in the back seat of some of those
1960s cars. Some of them didn't even have power brakes!

 

Bottom posting made sense back in the days of 300 baud modems and none
GUI. It no longer makes sense. Top posting is a far more efficient
way to communicate in about 90% of the threads for about 90% of the
people reading them. People who whine about top posting are the
equivalent of those who still use Apple II computers.

 

Quite! But your die-hard old timers won't buy that. You can also see that
they think I am a "full quoter", whereas I am just not cutting off the
thread so one can see the context.

I must say though there are some circumstances where top-posting can be a
nuisance, and that is in web forums which reproduce these threads.
Tough....

Far worse are those who intersperse a few words of 'wisdom' in a long post
here and there, so one has to scroll down a lot to see what they are saying.
And those who reply at the bottom of long posts (without trimming them) with
some inanity like "LoL" or "I agree"...

Anyway, I give MoPar Man yet another thing to rant about.

DAS

 

Agreed... But the Anally retentive are accommodated when given the
opportunity to be net nannies(SIC Nazi). ;-p

It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard
the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all
ages who mean to govern well, but *They mean to govern*. They promise to
be good masters, *but they mean to be masters*. Daniel Webster

 

Bandwidth or connection speed has / had nothing to do with posting or
message composition style.

Bottom posting and in-line quoting has always made sense.

What you are referring to is really the lack of performing in-line
quoting, as I am doing here.

I am quoting selective comments that you have made in a previous post
and responding directly to them. This is known as in-line quoting. It
allows you (and anyone else) to know the exact context of what I am
writing *without* needed to guess or to read previous posts in this
thread.

No. People that point out the flaws of top-posting and full-quoting are
simply more intelligent people, that are able to exert a few more
micro-calories to arrange their posts as they compose their in-line
replies.

If you're going to top-post and NOT in-line quote, then there is no
purpose for you to drag / quote the entire previous post that you're
replying to into your post. It's just a waste of resources to do that.

 

Quite what? Sorry, I don't know what you're saying "Quite" to.

What won't we buy?

Sorry, I'm not following you.

Which you are.

Ah, that old gag. What a bullshit reason that is to drag the entire
previous post into your reply.

If anyone wants to see the context, then they have the entire thread at
their disposal, and they will know exactly which post you're replying
to. There is no reason to be a "full-quoter" for exactly that reason.
These are not private e-mail conversations we're having here on usenet.
That style of top-posting and full bottom-quoting is not useful for
usenet.

Both of those styles are (again) the result of extreme lazyness on the
part of the author who does not do the reader the courtesy to remove all
but what he is replying to.

Bottom posting while full-quoting still makes one a "full-quoter", which
as I've already stated is also poor usenet message composition style.

 

Which resources?

 

If nothing else - my visual sensibilities.

 

QED. A rant.

My post is at the top and everything else is below it. No ned to scroll
through anything if you don't want to.

Try using a 'proper' newsreader....

;-)
DAS

 

Figures.

 

No. Just restating established correct usenet message composition and
posting style, with explanations.

Which doesn't tell me what arguments or statements you're responding to.

Only if I want to know what your responding to. And even then, when you
quote the entire post, you can't be specific about what elements you're
responsing to.

Ha. That's a laugh (which you acknowledged).

IE is not a proper usenet reader (but I suppose that's what you meant
with your smiley).

If you and Ashton Crusher want to enlighten yourselves, I suggest you
read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style

 

Jeez..that is tough!, your Highness. ;-p

 

Yes, MoPar Man

"For a long time the traditional style was to post the answer below as much
of the quoted original as was necessary to understand the reply (bottom or
inline). Many years later, when email became widespread in business
communication, it became a widespread policy to reply above the entire
original and leave it untouched below the reply."

My point exactly. I find bottom-posting irritating, but I won't get annoyed
about it.

Chacun a son gout (without the accents as I am too lazy to insert them, but
as a Canadian you are bi-lingual -- hohoho -- and should have no trouble
reading this phrase).

DAS

 

?

Yes what?

No. My point exactly.

What you're missing is that what we're having here is not an e-mail
discussion. This is a threaded usenet discussion.

And what's more, the above paragraph leaves out one important fact:

That should read as follows:

"Between 1995 and 2000 when e-mail first became widespread in business
communication (Five to ten years after usenet's initial wave of
popularity and established posting composition style), it became common
to reply above the entire fully-quoted message due to that being the
default behavior of e-mail clients (Outlook and Outlook Express)
introduced by Microsoft for use on the vast majority of desktop
computers during that time frame."

In other words, top-poasting and full-quoting (at least as it applied to
e-mail) became the "norm" because that was the default behavior of
arguably the first defacto e-mail clients used by people that were new
to electronic communications.

You haven't said anything about in-line posting, as I am doing right
now.

You haven't said anything about how satisfactory you find my ability to
reply to every small comment or point that you make, and for you to know
the exact context of what I write because I am quoting you while
replying in-line.

Do you not understand the difference between sharply-edited in-line
posting, and full-quoting bottom-posting?

I suspect that "hoho" means you know full well that English/french
bilingualism is a myth in Canada (and that the appearance of both
languages on many documents and signs is for political appeasement and
not for practicality).

Thanks to google translate - yes, everyone has their own taste. But
good taste is universal.

(I will now delete the remainder of your full-quote, which it's presence
at the bottom of your post accomplished nothing and was just excess
baggage)

 

C'est "its"

 

Should posts be "formatted" for the 90% of people who have been
following them from the beginning or for the 10% who just pop in and
out of the discussion? Top posting is clearly superior for the 90%
who have ALREADY read all the prior material and don't need to wade
thru it again. I choose to use the format that best suits the serious
readers of a thread rather then the format that best suits the casual
reader who most likely won't even reply OR will Quote the ENTIRE post
with a one word addition at the very bottom that adds little or
nothing to the discussion - but that will make you and your ilk all
warm and fuzzy because the useless additional material is bottom
posted.

 

Really? you think so?