Not Quite As Advertised...

On 8/7/2008 12:11 AM Twibil spake thus:

Looks like they amended the listing since you saw it; it now has the correct wheel arrangement, is listed as grade "C-2 Restoration Required", and they say that there is some damage that must be restored.

Some slack might be cut here: looks to me like the daughter/niece/granddaughter of the person who once owned this may be selling it, meaning they're no expert on model locomotives. The UP designation probably comes from the box.

No. Look at the eBay URL in the top post in this thread.

And speaking of top posting...

A: Because it reverses the natural conversational sequence.

Q: Why is top posting frowned upon?

A: Because old fogies and chatroom twits alike cling to some fantasy of a conversation, when a newsgroup is a collection of threaded messages, and that is just how most sensible people read them: using a properly set up capable newreader to run down the messages, followig from one to another. Where context of a particular reply is unclear, and the writer did not include a short clip indicating which part of some over-long screed the reply concerned, all you need do is look at the preceding message in the thread list. I'd rather have to click onthe next message (or two) above than to have to scroll down through endless regurgitation of the entire quoted thread to get to the new content - often only a few lines or at most a paragraph or two.

People who just let their newsreader default to quoting everything from the previous lazy bottom poster, and do not bother to snip out only the few relevant lines to quote before their reply, should themselves be bottom posted.

Peeler cores are relatively cheap down at Home Despot. KY optional.

- Vlad

I wish it were that simple. "Proper threading" doesn't work for a very simple reason - the threading algorithm can't take account and properly thread multiple responses to the same post, because that would require content analysis, so it defaults to "time posted", which is a mess because of, among other things, the utterly non-standard way ISPs handle time zones and time stamps. Also, late responses to an earlier post are either threaded in earlier, which requires back-tracking, or are slotted in time-posted order, which is confusing.

I gave up on threading for another reason -- I just want to look at new messages, and wading through a mess of Read and Unread messages in a thread is just too much hassle. Threading is one of those "practical ideas" that turns out to be much less useful than its inventors imagined. It has some value when you want to read an archived topic, but it's less than useful for carrying on a current exchange.

PMMail, an OS/2 e-mail client later ported to Windows, allowed highlighting part of a post, and responding only to that part. Very useful. Pity no other e-mail client has this feature. It also had minimal HTML display capability, showing only the text and automatically converting embedded objects to attachments. Also useful - none of those cute dancing bears and pumping hearts.

HTH

Of course, the Mail app that comes with Mac OSX does that...

(stoking the fires)

Mark

Ah. So you don't have conversations that include more than one person?

Speaking of twits...

Hassle? In 40Tude Dialog all you do is keep pressing "N: for new messages

- it skips along through the thread trees to the next new reply.

Again, it's obvious you haven't tried Dialog - I just used that very feature in it.

Really, the biggest hassle reading newsgroups is idiots and lazy wankers who just auto quote the whole stinking heap that some previous lazy wanker did the same with.

No, you misapprehend the meaning of conversation: immediate reply, something approximated by chatrooms although usually to no more than inane purpose. Of course, if you were to plug your ears, tape a conversation, then replay the tape and reply to comments you found interesting, you would have a good model of a newsgroup. But not a conversation.

Must go sharpen some posts . . .

On 8/14/2008 3:06 AM Steve Caple spake thus:

So, "Vlad" (aka Steve), why do you make it an all-or-nothing proposition? I agree with "Twibil" (aka Pete) that top-posting is basically moronic and contrary to the normal flow of any conversation. Your point about other morons quoting every single character of a replied-to message is well taken, but there's a very simple fix for that, one which should always be mentioned along with bottom-posting: it's called "judicious trimming". Like I've done here.

It's lazy to top-post, and it's equally lazy to reply to an already long post without trimming it down to size.

Wolf Kirchmeir wrote in news:48a41f3e$0$16248 $ snipped-for-privacy@news.newshosting.com:

Well, Xnews supports the "highlight and reply" function you mention. It's not an e-mail client, but a Usenet reader. (How do I know? I just did it.)

Puckdropper

Yeah, sure, so what? Other NG clients do the same.

Anyhow, I tried 40tude, and didn't like it. Can't remember why, probably the interface.

Xnews is another one I tried and didn't like. I don't work the way its author does, so its quirks don't suit me.

On 8/14/2008 11:59 AM Wolf Kirchmeir spake thus:

Works that way in Thunderbird too.

Reminds me of how people used to rave about Forté Agent, which had a

Well, yeah, sure - but it does elminate the "hassle" of wading through a mess of read and unread messages, doesn't it?

YMMV. I find it easier to see just the Unread messages, check the topics and senders, and decide which to read. I don't always read your golden words, for example. ;-)

HTH

And sold for $131.48, maybe what the brass is worth?

Sorry, but you're making up your own meanings here -and expecting us to fall for them. Won't fly. Nothing in the definition of conversation says *anything* about immediate replies.

Now in theory, a conversation is carried out using vocal means rather than keyboards (and you missed that one), but when you take emoticons and the general lack of inhibition found on Newsgroups together, a newsgroup thread resembles a conversation between multiple persons far more than it does a formal coorespondence of any sort.

There's even a name for it: it's known as "editing".

And things such as posts *do* need editing, despite the definition of an editor which states, "Editor": a parasitic life-form that exists by sucking the blood from creatures called "writers" who have two things the editor itself does not possess: originality and creativity."

-Pete