Posting

I much prefer top posting as the new material then appears immediately without having to scroll through previous posts. I fear this may differ from usenet convention - but then who want's to be conventional ;-)

That's what snipping is for.

BugBear

Me neither Martin! I can never get my head around the protocol in top and bottom posting. It seems to me that if you rely on the previous message to provide the inspiration for the reply, it is more elegant to include it in the opening paragraph as I did above.

Failing which, a snip job will do it if there are multiple replies to make.

Regards,

Kim Siddorn,

In message , J K Siddorn writes

It's probably fair to say that this topic has started more flame wars on Usenet than any other ;-)

Many, if not most, would agree. "Top-posting" is viewed by some as more heinous than murder or arson in H.M.'s dockyards...

Personally, I don't give two hoots (I nearly said something nautical then), most of the time. Some messages just lend themselves naturally to one style or the other. If the entire exchange is small enough to be viewed on screen at once, then it matters little, IMHO. The only time I get agitated is when I have to scroll through five pages of quoted wisdom only to find that the poster has added a succinct "Me too!"...

My own style is to intersperse my comments with those I am responding to.

Indeed it will. It used to be commonplace to indicate the removal of original text in a quoted block by the use of but this seems to be less common (sadly) and posters appear to be in favour of quoting everything, regardless of merit.

Gentlemen,

Top posting it is then unless otherwise perswadded.

Martin P

that

settled

then ;-)

See:

The linux reference is just the server it is hosted on BTW.

Peter

Peter

-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Luton, UK snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk

A shame then that Microsoft outlook express automatically top posts! To bottom post I have to move the cursor all the way down, say my piece and then retrieve my sig from the top of the page :-(

Anyway, if I was talking to you, I wouldn't repeat what you had just said before replying. Infact it shouldn't really be necessary to repeat it afterwards either, but I appreciate that some sort of recap can be useful to anyone who does not read the posts in order.

I do sometimes intersperse when the number of points to be answered demands it - see my post in 'hit and miss' thread.

I know that the entrenched Usenet conventions are unlikely to change, but just because it's always been that way does not mean they are any more (or less) logical than the alternatives.

It puts it there to help you to snip before replying below.;-) While most PC's come with Outlook Distress as standard it is not an RFC compliant Usenet posting program. Many would say (the polite ones that is) it's a "Jack of all trades but master of none".

With one to one email communication I entirely agree with you, because we should both know what we are communicating about a top reply is just fine I feel that when it comes to Usenet you are rather missing the point . Articles are archived and the information they contain can be very useful, sometimes years down the line. If the posts are in context the information is easily found, if not it can be extremely difficult to find let alone retrieve. Another example is trying to follow top posted threads after being away from the group for a while, the subject would have to be of extreme interest before I would be bothered to read it back to front.

IMHO, that is the most user friendly way of maintaining a thread.

The conventions were formulated by wiser men than I by taking into account all the factors and working out the most efficient way of conducting news groups. Personally I have never got to grips with reading an article from the bottom to the top, perhaps one day the reverse will be logical but I would not put money on it. ;-)

"Richard H Huelin" wrote (big snip!):-

I do take your point Richard and I'll admit that I hadn't really considered the archive case. I guess the aim is for each post is to make sense as a stand-alone precis of the complete thread to date? Now where has that sig got to!

wrote(snip):-

Just checking to see what would happen if I negligently forgot to retrieve my sig from where OE left it ;-)

IMHO all this is just the sort of thing which sadly puts the many computer owning engine enthusiasts (rather than engine owning computer enthusiasts) off of participating in this NG. Many is the time I have tried to explain the basics to someone at our local SE club (something which I am signally ill equipped to do) only to see the eyes glaze over as soon as it becomes clear that there is more to it than than surfing the internet or using email. As I intimated in another thread, roll on the day when computers are genuinely 'plug and play'.

Now perhaps you can explain why my ADSL connection keeps dropping out and, after a few attempts to reconnect, steadfastly insists that there is "no dialtone" until the computer is restarted :-(

Night Night

Nick H

Another problem that is also (probably) inadvertent is the position of your sig separator in relation to the post you are replying too.

Reply to this post (before I replied) and do the same to your post responding to mine (OT - Problems with Norton etc etc) where you top post.

You'll notice that the sig separator deletes the other person's text in one (top posted) and not the other (bottom posted)

Newsreaders like Agent and other are set to use the sig separator for deleting 'anything' below, not just your name or initials.

Peter

-- Peter & Rita Forbes snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk Engine pages for preservation info:

I suffer using Outlook at work and it seems that most people have to cut and paste the text into the proper places or they end up top posting anyway. If someone knbows how to do the bottom posting in outlook automatically then I am al ears.

At home I use a decent OS that is rather less expensive than even Dave's.

Nice reading you again Dave.

73's de G8XIH

I think it can be kicked into behaving properly but don't quote me. B-) I don't use windows let alone OLE.

See: nothing is showing up when I just reply to your posting..., your sig separator has deleted all of the post, including your own words, and I havn't done anything!

What was actually said was:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ "Peter A Forbes" wrote(snip):-

So not just outlook express that has problems then !

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

No, not just Outlook Express, it is an integral part of the scheme of things and allows lengthy signatures to be deleted from replied-to posts, thus keeping the length of the posts down.

You can see the effects for your yourself.

Peter

-- Peter & Rita Forbes snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk Engine pages for preservation info:

Why explain anything, just let them post. Quoting was probably necessary when posts were not well propagated. It's not done in normal letter writing. I use it because I don't wish to re type context. This is because I think posts should be able to stand alone and make sense.

Is there a setting in your mail client to "make use of an open connection"? Or perhaps "open dial up connection before going on line"? if first then it should be checked, if second not. It appears your machine is still configured for dial up rather than knowing it is now part of a network.

AJH

Right so we`re going for top then ??? You`re getting me very confused. Top, bottom, top bottom or stick a bit in if you want !!!