Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 15:00:47 +0200 From: Miguel Mendez <flynn@energyhq.es.eu.org> To: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@online.fr> Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Why top-posting is bad Message-ID: <20040827150047.41f3498b.flynn@energyhq.es.eu.org> In-Reply-To: <20040827114038.GA2453@online.fr> References: <41248C2F.8020401@quadspeed.com> <417F9703-F1DC-11D8-AE79-000393BB56F2@HiWAAY.net> <007001c485ec$9d3bbb10$3300a8c0@verizon.net> <9FDC1E28-F1E2-11D8-AE79-000393BB56F2@HiWAAY.net> <20040819134840.GA3104@online.fr> <20040822015558.GO92256@wantadilla.lemis.com> <20040827114038.GA2453@online.fr>
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--Signature=_Fri__27_Aug_2004_15_00_47_+0200_S8xJE4GV88vOrw66 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 17:10:38 +0530 Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@online.fr> wrote: Hi, > > This is a marginally valid point. The trouble is that most people > > are only semi-literate when it comes to mail. They don't > > *understand* that it's a good idea to limit the size of the messages > > that people send. They usually also don't care, because it's so > > difficult with the tools at their disposal, and they don't believe > > that there are easier ways to do it. Just because most people don't want to bother learning netiquette doesn't make it less annoying. You know, when in Rome... It's the same with unpatched Windows boxes. Joe Sixpack doesn't care if his Windows box is ridden with spyware and viruses but, in the end, is the rest of us who pay for his carelessness when his PC acts as open relay for spammers and whatnot. > > I've made the decision that I should not. I reformat the messages > > before replying to them (thus the message > > > > [Format recovered--see > > http://www.lemis.com/email/email-format.html] > > > > at the top of such replies and I'm 100% with Greg here. Nobody's expected to be an expert in everything, but some people simply don't want to learn. > I get plenty of messages that are top-posted continuously all the way > for 10 generations. I see no problem in following the context. I can That's fine. I personally find it annoying to get a copy of what I've written with every e-mail. And it gets worse as the conversation goes on, with messages getting 150-200KiB big. > > better. But sometimes it's worth expressing the fact that people > > are more likely to get (voluntary) answers if they express > > themselves well; and that includes the presentation of their text. > > That can be explained politely, rather than saying "Top-posters won't > be honoured with a reply". That only works the first 50-100 times you find yourself in such situation. You'll eventually burn out. It has happened to me recently. A friend of mine, who recently majored in CS, replied to me top posting 3 or 4 times before it pissed me off enough to send her to a "learn to quote" text. She's a CS major, she's tech savvy. If she felt offended, so be it. It's basic stuff she should be aware of. Cheers, -- Miguel Mendez <flynn@energyhq.es.eu.org> http://www.energyhq.es.eu.org PGP Key: 0xDC8514F1 Note: All HTML and non-english mail goes to /dev/null --Signature=_Fri__27_Aug_2004_15_00_47_+0200_S8xJE4GV88vOrw66 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.5 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQFBLzCBnLctrNyFFPERAumsAJ4waR4VWglNVBajJK687XQU2rADVACeM6sF ZObBg5N8NUXnk/kT/zRQZQY= =A62d -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --Signature=_Fri__27_Aug_2004_15_00_47_+0200_S8xJE4GV88vOrw66--
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