David Abrahams writes:
At Tue, 26 Jan 2010 10:09:43 -0800, Robert Ramey wrote:
I thought I was familiar with the guidelines and never remembered this.
I top-post all the time. It seems much more natural to me when it's not convenient to intersperse comments into the previous message. Why I like top posting:
a) It means that I don't have to scroll to the bottom of a message which is sometimes pretty long. b) To me it is more natural to follow the style of other communications (artilcle, books, etc) which make their point in the main text and refer to footnotes, bibliographies, etc at the end of the main text.
c) You don't confuse or even *upset* (as I've discovered the hard way) many people in the business world, where top-posting and overquoting is the accepted standard. Every message drags along the entire thread history with it, and you keep a record of everything by storing the final message. (yuck) It's a cultural thing, and Boost fits into the open-source programmer weenie culture much more than the business culture.
I was getting annoyed by some top-posting here recently, so I dug up this thread. Is an "open-source programmer weenie culture" like a nerdy culture? Anyway, please stop top posting and trim the old parts of the thread that are no longer needed. Brian Ebenezer Enterprises - In G-d we trust. http://webEbenezer.net
-----Original Message----- From: Boost [mailto:boost-bounces@lists.boost.org] On Behalf Of Brian Wood via Boost Sent: 25 June 2017 23:31 To: boost Cc: Brian Wood Subject: Re: [boost] What's wrong with top-posting?
David Abrahams writes:
At Tue, 26 Jan 2010 10:09:43 -0800, Robert Ramey wrote:
I thought I was familiar with the guidelines and never remembered this.
I top-post all the time. It seems much more natural to me when it's not convenient to intersperse comments into the previous message. Why I like top posting:
a) It means that I don't have to scroll to the bottom of a message which is sometimes pretty long. b) To me it is more natural to follow the style of other communications (artilcle, books, etc) which make their point in the main text and refer to footnotes, bibliographies, etc at the end of the main text.
c) You don't confuse or even *upset* (as I've discovered the hard way) many people in the business world, where top-posting and overquoting is the accepted standard. Every message drags along the entire thread history with it, and you keep a record of everything by storing the final message. (yuck) It's a cultural thing, and Boost fits into the open-source programmer weenie culture much more than the business culture.
I was getting annoyed by some top-posting here recently, so I dug up this thread.
Is an "open-source programmer weenie culture" like a nerdy culture?
No - it's the original and traditional - or it was, before Microsoft unilaterally used their muscle to break with tradition and make top posting the 'Standard' in all Windows mailers. (The cursor for replying is placed at the top of the page, not the bottom). There are pros and cons to both top and bottom posting, but like most endian-type arguments, there are NO pros to a *mixture* of top and bottom posting. Boost has always bottom posted and I don't see any good reason to change. You can always see the full discussions on sites like Nabble. Paul PS It is also traditional to stick to plain text - usable by everyone and no risk of nasties hidden in HTML. --- Paul A. Bristow Prizet Farmhouse Kendal UK LA8 8AB +44 (0) 1539 561830
On 6/26/17 6:46 AM, Paul A. Bristow via Boost wrote: Boost has always bottom posted and I don't see any good reason to change.
You can always see the full discussions on sites like Nabble.
Paul
PS It is also traditional to stick to plain text - usable by everyone and no risk of nasties hidden in HTML.
The only thing I might mention is that we used to bug people more about over quoting. I think that bottom posting works better when poster snips out parts of the quote that are not relevant to his comments. FWIW David Abrahams was the chief overquoting nanny. Robert Ramey
Hi, Am 26.06.2017 15:46, schrieb Paul A. Bristow via Boost:
There are pros and cons to both top and bottom posting, but like most endian-type arguments, there are NO pros to a *mixture* of top and bottom posting.
There is a comprehensive discussion of quotation styles in german on this webpage, which is a default place to point people to in the german speaking area: http://einklich.net/usenet/zitier.htm I don't know, if any automatic translation is able to transport the content good enough to any other language. Anyway, the author comes to the conclusion, that shortened inline quotes is the most reasonable and easy to use one for the reader. That is exactly the style, that has always been standard on the boost mailing lists as well as on many others. Christof
participants (4)
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Brian Wood -
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Paul A. Bristow -
Robert Ramey