OT--Taking on city hall

On Fri, 09 Dec 2005 12:36:24 +1100, with neither quill nor qualm, Bill Lee quickly quoth:

--snip--

Good post, Bill. Bottom or interstitial posting is the way to go.

short quote of crucial text from original message new text

quoted text new text, etc.

========================================================= The Titanic. The Hindenburg. +

The Clintons. + Website & Graphic Design =========================================================

Larry and Bill,

You both are right. Your opinions are predicated on the willingness of folks to delete everything not necessary to keep the new post in context. Here in the real world that isn't the case and for that reason I'm sure many of us will prefer the new posts at the top. If you are having problems with context it should be you to do the simple scrolling, enough to establish context and no more.

Insulting top posters needlessly isn't productive. One thing to remember... on usenet you guys have no rank to pull!

George Willer

Not much to do, ey? Got too much time on your hands? Got a sad empty life?

(top posted for your convenience)

steve ;-)

On Thu, 8 Dec 2005 18:18:46 -0800, with neither quill nor qualm, "PrecisionMachinisT" quickly quoth:

--94 lines snipped--

Please learn to snip your quotes, Sam.

========================================================= The Titanic. The Hindenburg. +

The Clintons. + Website & Graphic Design =========================================================

For what it's worth, I prefer top-posting. If I'm following a thread of interest closely enough (and if I wasn't interested, I just wouldn't follow it at all....), I don't have any problem keeping context with top-postings. What really burns my a$$ is having to scroll down thru three pages of quoted crap to see a response that is only three words long, and totally irrelevant.

So top-post, or bottom post as you prefer. I 'm more liable to killfile people who bottom post, especially when they don't have enough sense to TRIM THE QUOTED CRAP to just the "needed" length.

Kudos to you George :)

BK

Balls! If it's about communication, then the reply should come first.

So sue me...

BK

For this reason I spent my time to write that long posting - to give the reasons why people *should* take that time to delete extraneous text in their posting before clicking on the button that says "Post". It's the same way that I would try to get everyone to travel in one of two opposing streams on a crowded sidewalk. You seem to be saying that because not all people will join either of those streams then it is OK for you to follow their example, even if you know this to be less efficient. I'm trying to say that the equivalent of a top posting rule is the arrows and line markings painted on the sidewalk. Sure you (and others) can ignore it, but we get better results if people abide by them. For Usenet there is RFC 1855 which describes how people should post to try to ensure that you get the most out of other people's postings and others get the most out of yours. Have things changed since

1995 when the RPC was written so that it is no longer relevant?

Do you actually prefer new material added to the top, or can't you be bothered with trimming out the non-relevant material that you are replying to or paraphrasing what the thread is about? Do you just read a few threads in one newsgroup, or do you participate in a number of newsgroups? The reason that I ask is that I read so many threads a day that it is impossible to remember who said exactly what without appropriate quoting. Would you prefer everyone just posted replies without context? Does your newsreader thread articles so that "just replies" is viable on your computer?

These are real questions: I am interested in your responses. Like I said in my longer posting: I top post in some email messages, because it is appropriate there. I post inline replies in Usenet because it is appropriate here.

When I read a newsgroup, the message disappears from my list of articles after being read and the newsgroup window is closed, so I usually can't see articles read yesterday or last week (nor would I want them still listed). Thus I lose context of your reply if you just put your reply as the only content of a reply. If the article you are replying to has not yet reached my Usenet server, but your reply has then I have no idea of what you are replying to unless you dump the original in your reply. Even then I'm not sure, since you may have edited out relevant sections of that posting that provide a complete record of the original poster. Since the posting is yet to come, then I'll have to read the original later when it does arrive at my server.

I notice that you (Larry) are using Outlook Express - I don't have that so I fired up a copy of Entourage (Mac) to see what the experience of reading Usenet was like "the Microsoft Way". If your Outlook Express is like Entourage, then you have my sympathy. I note that it does, by default, put the cursor at the top of your reply by default, so I can understand why a newcomer to Usenet might think that it operates the same way that email does (since it is presented that way).

As I said, I think it is the responsibility of a poster to minimise the work that their intended reader should go through to understand their message in the right context. If you say that I should start scrolling through an entire message to see how your reply relates to the previous one, then that is sometimes just too hard to bother with and fraught with misinterpretation. What if I think the sentence or point that you are making is in response to a different part of the message that you are responding to? If there are two questions posed in an article, and you answered one of them, is someone able to tell from your reply which one you've responded to?

Dumping someone else's quoted posting is (to me) lazy and implies that someone have spent little time on this posting, and thus a greater chance that their arguments or information is not as well thought out as it could be. Just like a posting full of language like, "any1 can u use a 4in 3jaw chuk on a S'bend lath i need toknow the answer tonite so any1 can help tell me" (made up example), makes me much less likely to answer this poster, even though I might have the answer they need. If it's too much bother to organise your own thoughts in an easy to understand way, then it's too much bother for me to give you answers you might need.

You are right in that we can't force anyone to do anything on Usenet (years of reading news.admin.net-abuse.email and news.admin.net-abuse.usenet has taught me that). But I have learnt that civil, considered, concise postings with good grammar and punctuation will win respect, even from the people who know without a shadow of a doubt that you are wrong and will always be wrong.

In Usenet, the best you can do is to killfile someone you don't want to see postings from. If I killfile someone, I'll not announce it - they will disappear from my list of articles, sometimes to be seen again when my kill filter entry for them expires, sometimes never. If I reply to you then I think you have written something worth responding to - if I think you have nothing worthwhile to say and are likely to have nothing to say in the future then you will be killfiled. (Obviously George, you must have something I thought valuable to reply to.) If someone wants to get in my killfile, that's fine - it can accommodate as many people, subjects, NNTP-Posting-Hosts, or any other criterion that are needed to filter someone out. That's not the issue - the issue is about communication and who has to do the 'hard work'. I think many posters have very worthwhile things to say, I just disagree that they are doing it in the most effective manner.

Bill Lee

Likely so------as I'm discovering. To me, what I have surely must be what everyone else has, right?

I'm what could easily be considered computer illiterate. I've used only the computer that sits in front of me, so I'm not familiar with anything but Windows Me and Outlook Express. At my age, I'm damned proud that I'm able to use one at all.

Top post or bottom post, makes no difference to me, but it sure as hell would be a kindness for folks to clip that which is not important when replying. Some replies are nothing short of a waste of time----doing nothing more than re-quoting that which has already been re-quoted. Sigh.

One of the biggest offenders is our good friend, Gunner. Still, it's better to have to wade through the endless quotes than to not hear from him at all.

Harold

snip--

Hey, we're not all that far from St. Helens. If he wants that kind of activity, could be he won't need a heat source, just hook up to the crater. The seismic activity has remained below a cat 3 for months now. Sort of like rocking the cradle.

Harold

snip----

With lines that run to my place? Should have enough 3 phase to go around.

Harold

And if you're not following closely enough do you prefer inline posting? I note that you are using Forte's Agent to read your newsgroups: it does a great job of threading articles, but it still can't help you if an article has not propagated to your news server yet the reply to it already has. How then do you keep track of context? Could you allocate the colour of quoted text to another colour than the default blue? I have my quoted text showing as a mid-grey colour (new text is black) so it is instantly obvious about what is old and what is new text, yet still very readable. Either way, both you and I don't have to read the quoted text, but can read the reply and the quoted text is right there with the reply to give it context.

I tend to graze in newsgroups, since I find that the Subject lines are often misleading, or thread drift has made them no longer relevant. As a result, I don't keep a lot in my head regarding individual threads and who said what last week, or yesterday.

I don't think you'll have any disagreement from any of us that reading three pages of crap just to post a one line or phrase comment is the worst possible thing, worse than quoting nothing at all. It certainly is the thing that will have me killfile someone faster than anything else (except maybe cascades).

Let's get this straw man out of the way: I don't know of anyone advocating full quoting with bottom posting. None. The only alternative of top posting is not bottom posting, it's inline posting with trimming and paraphrasing. This is not an argument of "Top Posting, Bottom Posting" - this is a false dichotomy: . The fact that a reply may come at the end of all of the quoted text should be a coincidence, not an ideal. If Bottom Posting after full quoted text really is objectionable then the desired alternative is not Top Posting.

If the reply to an article is "Yes" then how do you know what that reply was all about, unless you know context? Not everyone reads the newsgroups often enough or pays close attention enough to the threads so that they automatically understand context based on just a reply. Great for you if you can, but if you post you should consider all the readers (or potential readers) that may not. Sometimes it's their newsreaders that prevent the communication of context that you have. Inline reply with trimmed and paraphrased text will give them that context.

Bill Lee

Not quite, but IIRC you have hydronics heating the shop, fossil fueled--( I know I keep saying it, but one a these days we WILL get together )...

===

That mountain really IS a trip though...I remember when she first blew, I was in my early 20's or so.....like WTF is this crap???

Dry Snow???

===

In the meantime, suggest maybe start looking for places in which to bury poly pipe, appx ~350 feet of trenching per ton of capacity, bury the loops~5 feet deep...fossil fuels probly arent gonna get much cheaper, and what with local electric rates likely being much less dependant upon the world economy....

Great. An Ad hominem attack. Maybe it's an attempt at humour for my analysis of your posting:

I didn't know what you were referring to - since this subject thread had already devolved into three different threads regarding the original complaint about a poster's property, someone else's restored John Deere tractor, and top posting. Without context, you can guess that SteveB didn't mean that the original poster or the John Deere restorer's posts are 'BS', but can you be sure?

Hmmm, I trying to decide if the smiley wink is meant to tell me that he is trying to be funny as well as taunting, or whether it is meant to moderate the 'Nyah, nyah, nyah - you can't stop me' taunt in parenthesis.

Without the many cues of intonation of voice and subtle nuances of emphasis in body language, we only have someone's words to evaluate our impression of someone else. Improperly chosen words, or words entirely lacking do not help this impression. All we have on Usenet is our words and by this we will be known. I have to say that I can agree to disagree with your top posting/inline posting, but the ad hominem attack does not give me a stellar impression of SteveB.

Bill Lee

Yep! Love the heating system, hate the oil and cost. Talked to a distributor today and was quoted $2.26/gallon, plus sales tax. With crude on the rise once again, can't see it getting much lower. I'm giving serious consideration to a supplemental wood or coal fired boiler that works in conjunction with the oil boiler. Both would run, but the oil fired boiler would just make up that which the supplemental boiler couldn't provide. I'd have to look at my time as a freebie, otherwise it's still not a bargain. I'm not convinced I want to start trenching and installing yet more equipment, although I can't rule it out. One thing sure, over $2/gallon takes the shine right out of heating with oil, if there ever was a shine. When we first filled the 1,000 gallon tank it sure looked like there was, though. Paid $0.72/gal, plus sales tax. We use maybe 800 gallons/year, but it will be more when we start heating the house (same boiler).

H

Unzoned property.....this particular County being one of the few real stragglers when it comes to incorporating the comprehensive land use planning statutes that were mandated near to two decades ago.

I logged.....left bunches of the harvestable species, and with replantation there's well over the minimum requirements left for retaining status, never bothered with changing useage to residential use. Costs money to do so and tax rates are higher.

Mountainous terrain...not possible without 25 ft high fencing, sadly...

"Subject 'abandoned truck with no engine' moved--replaced with newly abandoned truck that still has engine"...

Harold,

Ive taken this private, since it's just mainly become just a conversation between me and you.

You have mail, but it's stuck in my outbox presently--some kinda socket error.

Cheers,

That's been going around of late. He now enjoys a place in my killfile, thanks to his inability to discern right from wrong. I can't help but think he'll quietly be placed in yours.

Harold

Got it!

H

Very well, now probly its time to assimilate some a the data.

On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 22:43:14 -0600, with neither quill nor qualm, Barney-Killer quickly quoth:

Zero. Zip. Nada. ALL your posts on RCM (4) have been to OT threads anyway.

(see sig)

Agreed.

Trim and interstitially reply. Posts then look like FAQs and are much more readable to everyone.

Needlessly? Hah! As to rank, yes we do. We can plonk all your sorry top-posting asses (as I did you awhile ago) and not have to put up with it.