OT: posting ettiquette, Was: Re: [plug] plip windows 98 <-> linux

[Greg Mildenhall]

Rereading what follows, it sounds wearied to the point of hostility in
places, so let me assure Andrew that no hostility is meant to be directed
at him. Any hostility is the result of impatience from long dealings with
the endless stream of usenet arrivals who don't think the house rules
apply to them, or might be there for good reason. It is not aimed at any
person in particular. Not even Bret.

On Tue, 5 Feb 2002, Andrew Pamment wrote:
> BTW: Trimming and top posting I don't think are for claritys sake.
> It's to preserve bandwith.

Trimming was once mostly about bandwidth and partly about clarity, but I
think it is mostly about clarity now - but remember that the bottleneck
these days is usually the link between screen and brain, and trimming your
posts is a wonderful way to conserve that.

> If you ask me, Top posting is easier to understand.

I'm fascinated. Do explain. :)

> At the top you have the new stuff, at the bottom you have the old stuff
> if you need to reference it.

If you are referencing, you quote an article ID (or these days perhaps a
google URL) You only quote the previous article if you are replying to it.
If you are replying to it, you need to put your reply after the bit you
are replying to. If this doesn't seem obvious at first, imagine a lengthy
cascade of conversation. Backwards. Particularly if you have to scroll
down through a long quoted section, then scroll back _up_ to get to the
reply. Now remember that often you will be replying to several parts of
the previous post. Are you going to reply to each section immediately
above that section of quote? Ouch.

Yes, there are many reasons for the way we post, and they have been
discovered and tested through many long years of usenet and mailing list
discussion. If you want to know why a particular rule of netiquette is as
it is, there is endless history and discussion for you to peruse, and
every one of those rules will be explained in at least twelve places on
the web. It does you credit to ask and understand why these things are as
they are. If you were to openly refute the wisdom of so many years without
first looking for the rationale behind it, you would just look silly. :)

> When you chop it up, it might seem easy to understand in your client..

If your client does not present your message to you exactly as others will
read it, you need to get a new client.

> but when your quotes are too long and it word wraps them and forgets to
> put in the quote sign for the wrapped bit and you are trying to figure
> out if that was new stuff or part of the quote...

Then you are quoting passages that are too long and should be snipped.
I had to do as you described for what I quoted here, but since it's only
three lines long, I had no such dramas.

-Greg