O.T. Actual airline pilot conversations

Bill Denton wrote:

Actually, "bottom-posting" is conventional on Usenet only among people who
say "bottom-posting" is conventional on Usenet.

Most everyone else top-posts. If you are reading a top-posted thread, you
open a message, read the top few lines, then move to the next message, no
scrolling to the bottom required.

Much more convenient...

Why don't you take a hike, 'tard boy?

Robert, Thank you for the explanation.

I've always wondered why people posted the entire message at the top and now
I understand how it all started, but isn't it a bit archaic today? I'm
referring to your explanation about the delays etc.. Personally I have never
seen a response posted before I've seen the original post. If I had then
perhaps this would make more sense to me. Is usenet still this slow and
expensive today and if so, why on earth do people use it?

Keep in mind I'm not talking about quoting a portion of the message to bring
attention to a specific matter. That makes total sense. However, just as I'm
sure that no one here starts reading a book or the newspaper from the very
beginning every they set it down and then pick it up again, I don't see why
they feel we should have to re-read the original message over and over again
every someone post a response to the original poster. Just imagine what it
would be like if this was how we sent, received and re-sent letters to
people.

Is there still more here that I'm missing or is this just a matter of some
people have done it a certain way for so long and they're so set in their
ways that nothing is going to convince them to change? Personally I don't
really care if they change or not, if I don't want to scroll through all the
previous message they have posted and re-posted, I just bypass it, which is
what I find myself doing often.

Thanks again for your reply.

PJ

In article , PJ Hunt
wrote:

I've always wondered why people posted the entire message at the top and now
I understand how it all started, but isn't it a bit archaic today? I'm
referring to your explanation about the delays etc.. Personally I have never
seen a response posted before I've seen the original post. If I had then
perhaps this would make more sense to me. Is usenet still this slow and
expensive today and if so, why on earth do people use it?

Because USENET goes places where there is no Internet, like central
Africa and the South Pole.

-john-

--
================================================== ==================
John A. Weeks III 952-432-2708
Newave Communications http://www.johnweeks.com
================================================== ==================

[NGs trimmed, as I now see an article from PJH in r.a.p alone]

PJ Hunt wrote:

I've always wondered why people posted the entire message at the top ...

In general, that is not (and never has been) the proper way to do it.

The previous text should be snipped (or otherwise summarised) so as to
give sufficient context for the new comment to make sense.

... now I understand how it all started, but isn't it a bit archaic today?
I'm referring to your explanation about the delays etc.. Personally I have
never seen a response posted before I've seen the original post.

Matters of expense, propagation times, and reliability of propagation
are *less* of an issue than they were in the early days of Usenet, but
it remains desirable to provide *some* context, *usually* without
reposting the whole of the previous text.

... just as I'm sure that no one here starts reading a book ... from the
very beginning every they set it down and then pick it up again, I don't
see why they feel we should have to re-read the original message over and
over again every someone post a response to the original poster.

If quoted text is properly marked then it is very easy to skim over any
with which you are sufficiently familiar, but it is readily available to
provide useful context without having to dig out the quoted article,
which *may* not be present on your newsserver, especially if you have
been on holiday for a while.

Thus said "PJ Hunt" :
I'll stick to this type of posting unless someone can explain why it's
better to repost the entire message at the top of my reply.

It isn't. If you're too lazy to edit the quoted content to include just
the relevant portions that you're replying to, then by all means don't
bottom post.

You could top-post, but better still, just don't post at all. There
are plenty of other posters who value the reader's time enough to edit
properly.

(Marc VanHeyningen) wrote in news:cnlnm8$g2a
:

properly.



Q. What's more moronic than arguing the relative merits of top vs
bottom posting?

A. Spreading the thread across multiple news groups and being quite
off topic in all.

--
You are a fluke of the Universe
You have no right to be here
And whether you can hear it or not,
the Universe is laughing behind your back