Re: Top posting

Tech-Archive recommends: Fix windows errors by optimizing your registry

I agree.

Robin S.
--------------------
"Morten Wennevik [C# MVP]" <MortenWennevik@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:op.tqba6faadj93y5@xxxxxxxx
I don't really care how the posts are made, but if you aren't going to
snip the previous post, I prefer top posting as the answer is immediatly
readable without having to scroll (more reasons for this at the bottom).
If there are several questions, keep the answers separate (paragraph per
answer) on top, bottom or inline.

However, during all the years in various public internet communities,
there is one important rule to remember. There are no rules, and the
quicker you accept it, the faster you will stop being annoyed at people
not following what you consider rules. That said, there are guidelines,
and the more guidelines you follow, the more respect you will get, but
guidelines are optional. In a non public, or semi-public, moderated
forum you may enforce rules as you like, but you may well find out that
the less rules enforced, the happier the community.

As for guidelines, those are tricky, as there are very few common grounds
where every community agree. Usually they all agree on abusive language,
but posting style is too dependent on how you read and write the
messages.

One point regarding "reasons for not top posting" which claims it is
unnatural to read the question after the answer. This is true only if
you haven't already read the question, and is relevant only if you go
directly to an answer, which in my mind is rather unnatural, although if
would make sense if you search an archive and get more relevant hits on
the answer than the question. In this regard I often keep the original
question included in my answer (for archive reasons), but at the bottom
as it is relevant only to people not following the thread.

Btw, since entering news net (usenet) in 1994 I have seen two posts
complaining about top posted answers, both during the last year. Not
sure what to make of that.


On Thu, 05 Apr 2007 00:56:58 +0200, Bruce Wood <brucewood@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

This subject has come up several times in this group over the last
year. Several people in this group seem to feel strongly about this
topic. Rather than derail other threads with this discussion, I
figured we could talk about it here.

Since I'm leading off here, I'll state my opinion on the matter.

I really don't care one way or the other. I use Google, and for all
its faults, does do one thing right: it hides quoted text. So, I just
see the new post either above or below a little marker that says,
"Show quoted text". As a result, posting style doesn't matter a whit
to me.

However, I do understand that not everyone uses Google. Doubly so
since their latest round of "improvements" managed to make the
interface much, much worse than it was before. Other news readers may
not hide quoted text, and so posting style matters more to people who
use such news readers.

That said, it really pisses me off when an otherwise productive /
interesting thread goes off the rails because one person posts,
"Please don't top post." This leads to the inevitable response,
"What's top posting?" and then the original point of the thread is
pretty-much lost as the explanation is followed by a lengthy debate...
and another thread dies under a pile of posts about posting style.

I have a suggestion for those who feel strongly on this topic. It's
not a terribly original suggestion: I saw someone else do this a while
back. Write a little Web page on top posting: what it is, why it's
bad, etc. Then change your signature line to say, "Please don't top
post; see here" and provide a link to the Web page. It's simple,
unobtrusive, and every time you post you may make more converts. Even
better, it stands little or no chance of derailing otherwise useful
conversations.





--
Happy coding!
Morten Wennevik [C# MVP]


.

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