O.T. Actual airline pilot conversations

On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 06:47:01 GMT, "ShawnD2112"
wrote:

Bob,

That brings up a question you might be able to answer for me. I've never
understood why top posting is seen as such an evil thing. What am I
missing?

Cheers,
Shawn

The normal sequence of reading, processing, and understanding the
conversation.

The only place where the question is normally seen after the answer is
on Jeopardy - and you're no Alex Trebeck

ShawnD2112 wrote:

I've never understood why top posting is seen as such an evil thing.
What am I missing?

Two reasons:

One, as a thread progresses, a mix of top and bottom posting becomes
confusing when someone wants to look back through the quoted material.
Since most posters to newsgroups bottom post, that is the de facto
standard method. Email users typically top post, so that becomes the
standard for email.

Two, top posters often quote the entire text below their reply without
editing it. That makes the replies longer than they need to be. You
often see a one line "me too" post, followed by several hundred lines of
quote. Bottom posters seem to be more into the habit of quoting only
what is necessary to retain continuity, so it keeps the length of the
posts under control.

Can't speak for anybody else, but I top post so that those that have already
read the previous messages can easily see my response, it's right there at
the top. For those that need to be brought up to speed, (generally a
minority), they can scroll down to read the previous messages, which are
included intact (usually) so they can see everything in each message in it's
proper context.

What amazes me is how bent out of shape some people get over top-posting.
It's a matter of preference, what you like vs. what I like. Just like the
people who can't/won't use proper, grammatically correct English (I'm
speaking of those with English as their native language here), including
proper capitalization and punctuation. It annoys me to read these posts,
but I'm not going to make a big flaming war out of it. I don't insist on
perfection from others, as I'm not perfect myself. Nor do I expect others
to conform to my personal standards.

It just isn't that big a deal.

M

"James Robinson" wrote in message
...
ShawnD2112 wrote:

I've never understood why top posting is seen as such an evil thing.
What am I missing?

Two reasons:

One, as a thread progresses, a mix of top and bottom posting becomes
confusing when someone wants to look back through the quoted material.
Since most posters to newsgroups bottom post, that is the de facto
standard method. Email users typically top post, so that becomes the
standard for email.

Two, top posters often quote the entire text below their reply without
editing it. That makes the replies longer than they need to be. You
often see a one line "me too" post, followed by several hundred lines of
quote. Bottom posters seem to be more into the habit of quoting only
what is necessary to retain continuity, so it keeps the length of the
posts under control.

On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 12:18:12 GMT, James Robinson
wrote:

ShawnD2112 wrote:

I've never understood why top posting is seen as such an evil thing.
What am I missing?

Two reasons:

smip

Two, top posters often quote the entire text below their reply without
editing it. That makes the replies longer than they need to be. You
often see a one line "me too" post, followed by several hundred lines of
quote. Bottom posters seem to be more into the habit of quoting only
what is necessary to retain continuity, so it keeps the length of the
posts under control.

Dreamer.

ShawnD2112 wrote:

Bob,

That brings up a question you might be able to answer for me. I've never
understood why top posting is seen as such an evil thing. What am I
missing?


Not saying please or thank you is not evil either but it IS bad manners
and goes against established protocals that have been around for many,
many years.

On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 at 06:47:01 in message
, ShawnD2112
wrote:

That brings up a question you might be able to answer for me. I've never
understood why top posting is seen as such an evil thing. What am I
missing?

Top posting is common in business emails where people like to keep the
whole exchange together. I understand that usage but I feel that in many
cases bottom posting would still make more sense.

But for usenet the discussions or exchanges are more like conversation
and it is logical to put comments after statements and answers after
questions. To me this is natural; I find it difficult to understand why
some people don't agree! :-)

However 'evil' is much too strong; I would prefer 'tiresome'. Of course
this being usenet some people persist in top posting just because other
people don't like it. Others do it on 'principle' because they don't
want to be 'dictated to' or criticised. But no one can force you to do
it, or not do it on usenet.

Repeating lengthy messages just to write a couple of lines at the top is
perhaps even more 'tiresome'. And continuing to do that for reply after
reply so that the quotes get deeper and deeper is even worse.

I try to quote only as much as I need to make it clear what I am
commenting on, and to [snip] the rest indicating where cuts have been
made so that previous messages in the thread can be investigated. I have
not done that here as I consider it unnecessary.

YMMV on any or all of the above.

Cross posting removed.
--
David CL Francis

It's the net Nazi way to weed out the lazy. I prefer reading top posts, too,
but the old timers set the standards and don't want their authority
questioned.

mike regish

"ShawnD2112" wrote in message
k...
Bob,

That brings up a question you might be able to answer for me. I've never
understood why top posting is seen as such an evil thing. What am I
missing?

Cheers,
Shawn

: That brings up a question you might be able to answer for me. I've never
: understood why top posting is seen as such an evil thing. What am I
: missing?

It depends on the group. Here in USENET world, bottom posting is common.
However in military circles, top posting is normal and most readers would
not see your reply if you posted on the bottom (it is an expedience thing).

"Omega" wrote in message
news:348od.65578$V41.36060@attbi_s52...

: That brings up a question you might be able to answer for me. I've
never
: understood why top posting is seen as such an evil thing. What am I
: missing?

It depends on the group. Here in USENET world, bottom posting is common.
However in military circles, top posting is normal and most readers would
not see your reply if you posted on the bottom (it is an expedience
thing).

Does DoD still have any internal newgroups or newsfeeds? My command gave up
their DoD newsfeed close to a decade ago, so I lost visibility of it. Most
of the DoD content I used to get from RN and VN or dialup BBS's (remember
those?) soon showed up on web pages. Speaking of 'remember whens' (in
answer to another posters question about Usenet propogation), does Fidonet
still exist?

aem sends.....
(just another old fart who started on Usenet with a text interface and a
green screen, on a hard-wired dumb vt-100 or dialing in to the UNIX server
on an 8086 with a lightning-fast 1200 baud modem.)

"I'll see you at Linda's wedding."
"Well, see ya soon."
"Congratulations!"
"Ten thousand a year."
"How much?"
"Got a really big raise this time."
"Sorry to hear it. How's the job?"
"She's not feeling well. Flu, I think."
"Same as ever. How's yours?"
"How's your wife?"
"They painted her purple. They should call her the Prune Fart now."
"Good. Did you hear what Martin and Sheila did to the Sea Breeze?"
"Good, and you?"
"Bill! How the heck are you?"

ShawnD2112 wrote:
That brings up a question you might be able to answer for me. I've never
understood why top posting is seen as such an evil thing. What am I
missing?

--
Britney Spears' Guide to Semiconductor Physics
http://britneyspears.ac/lasers.htm