"Screen Scrape"

[Terry Kreft]

Lyn,
People can get quite vehement about top and bottom posting.

Essentially theadvantage of consistent bottom posting is that you can read
through the posts in sequence.

The advantage of top posting is that when you use a preview pane the
previewed content tends to be the last post.

On the subject of trimming, you should really trim previous posts to what is
relevant to your post, in the past people could get quite nasty about not
trimming posts, this has become less of an issue though since the advent of
fast internet links and large storage space.

Personally I'm a rabid top-poster and trim when I remember to do so,
speaking of which

--
Terry Kreft
MVP Microsoft Access

This may be straying from the original topic (but then who hasn't in this
thread , but I have a serious question. Like David, I didn't understand
the reference to "top posting". Nor Trevor's response -- at first (but I
got it eventually .

I have noted in this and other NGs that some people respond above the
previous post(s), some below. And of course with long and complex posts,

it

Is there general agreement on this?

 

[John Vinson]

In other words, is there an agreed netiquette on replying to posts in regard
to top/bottom posting and snipping early posts to avoid bloat? If so, what
is it?

This argument has been going on as long as Usenet has existed. It
sometimes attains the intensity of a religious war. Most old Usenet
hands prefer (with varying degrees of vehemence) bottom posting in
order to maintain chronological order within a message; many other
folks prefer top posting, for one because many newsreaders (including
the widely used Outlook Express) default to set the cursor there, and
for the reason you cite: being able to see the reply without scrolling
down.

There's no answer that will satisfy everyone, and there are vehement
opinions both ways.

Personally, I try to trim and either bottom post or interpost, but
depending on the situation, I'll sometimes just do a quick toppost.
I'm therefore despised and denigrated by the fanatics in both camps.
<g>


John W. Vinson[MVP]

 

[rkc]

People can get quite vehement about top and bottom posting.

What about eliminating newsgroups from a multi-posted article
when replying?

 

[Rick Brandt]

What about eliminating newsgroups from a multi-posted article
when replying?

Crossposting is only frowned upon when the number of groups is excessive.
As this one only has four groups I would say it's fine (albeit at the high
end of fine).

 

[rkc]

Crossposting is only frowned upon when the number of groups is excessive.
As this one only has four groups I would say it's fine (albeit at the high
end of fine).

O.K. I asked that wrong. Is it bad form to remove newsgroups from a
cross-posted article when replying to it. I tend to remove the
groups I don't read.

 

[Noozer]

O.K. I asked that wrong. Is it bad form to remove newsgroups from a
cross-posted article when replying to it. I tend to remove the
groups I don't read.

Remove any group you like. A person should be watching any group they post
to.

 

[Rob Oldfield]

This argument has been going on as long as Usenet has existed. It
sometimes attains the intensity of a religious war. Most old Usenet
hands prefer (with varying degrees of vehemence) bottom posting in
order to maintain chronological order within a message; many other

Personally speaking..... I'm all for compromise.

 

[rkc]

I also hate people who end every paragraph with a smiley

On bad days a <Grin> just makes me want to take a baseball bat
and give'em such a smash.

 

[Michael \(michka\) Kaplan [MS]]

I H8 it when someone cross posts to about 8 groups, legitimate question
and everything and when I reply I'm met with a message "non existent
newsgroups". I suppose a fault lies with newsgroup creators, e.g.
microsoft.public groups, how many do you really need? e.g:

microsoft.public.access.developers.toolkitode
microsoft.public.access.developerstoolkitode
microsoft.public.access.developers.toolkit

So if you had a question on the developers toolkit, where do you post?
There's loads of examples of "clientserver" vs "clientsvr", etc I'm sure
some groups could just be dropped but I guess it's harder to drop a
group than it is to create one. I see someone has created one called
"alt.netcom.wankers.send.too.many.newgroups" but ironically just creates
yet another group for someone to crosspost to.

The only way around THAT is to always use the original server,
msnews.microsoft.com. Many ISPs pick up groups that have actually been
removed, for example microsoft.public.access.developerstoolkitode was
removed when someone pointed out that there was a standard of some sort
suggesting <= 14 characters per segment.

The ISPs and those who they get their feeds from claim that deleting the
group would be inapprpriate since people still post sometimes.

And then problem perpetuates itself.


--
MichKa [MS]
NLS Collation/Locale/Keyboard Technical Lead
Globalization Infrastructure, Fonts, and Tools
Microsoft Windows International Division

This posting is provided "AS IS" with
no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Rob Oldfield]

(Top posted for the sheer hell of it...)

October 1995?

(Just watch Chris get vehement now.)

 

[Larry Linson]

Whatever they "should" be doing, many crossposters expect responses to
appear in the group from which they posted. Eliminating newsgroups from a
crosspost list may well prevent the original poster from seeing your
response.

Eliminating newsgroups from responses may happen if your news source doesn't
carry them all, but that's unavoidable.

Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVP

 

[Larry Linson]

On bad days a <Grin> just makes
me want to take a baseball bat
and give'em such a smash.

Hope you're not having a bad day, today! <OUCH>

 

[Chris2]

This may be straying from the original topic (but then who hasn't in this
thread , but I have a serious question. Like David, I didn't understand
the reference to "top posting". Nor Trevor's response -- at first (but I
got it eventually .

Lyn,

RFC1855: Netiquette Guidelines, http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1855.html,
mandates bottom-posting.

"If you are sending a reply to a message or a posting be sure you summarize
the original at the top of the message, or include just enough text of the
original to give a context. This will make sure readers understand when
they start to read your response. Since NetNews, especially, is
proliferated by distributing the postings from one host to another, it is
possible to see a response to a message before seeing the original. Giving
context helps everyone. But do not include the entire original!"

That should be enough for anyone.


Sincerely,

Chris O.

 

[Chris2]

(Top posted for the sheer hell of it...)

October 1995?

(Just watch Chris get vehement now.)

Nope.

It was first created in 1995, but has been updated a few times since
then.

They are only "guidelines", and not laws. (However, I do think they
are *good* guidelines.)


Chris O.

 

[Noozer]

Whatever they "should" be doing, many crossposters expect responses to
appear in the group from which they posted. Eliminating newsgroups from a
crosspost list may well prevent the original poster from seeing your
response.

So? Let them miss the response if they can't be bothered to watch where they
asked.

 

[Tony Toews]

A. People who complain about top/bottom posting instead of learning how to
scroll <g>.

Or folks who don't trim.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm

 

[Tony Toews]

This argument has been going on as long as Usenet has existed.

For those of us from BBSs and/or Fidonet it was defiitely trim and bottom post.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm

 

[Trevor Best]

The only way around THAT is to always use the original server,
msnews.microsoft.com. Many ISPs pick up groups that have actually been
removed, for example microsoft.public.access.developerstoolkitode was
removed when someone pointed out that there was a standard of some sort
suggesting <= 14 characters per segment.

The ISPs and those who they get their feeds from claim that deleting the
group would be inapprpriate since people still post sometimes.

And then problem perpetuates itself.

aye, and the problem isn't restricted to ms.public either, I used to
take 3 different groups dedicated to Gigabyte motherboards, I solved
that one by upgrading to an Abit

 

[Trevor Best]

I think that the reason I usually top post is that a posting is like
replying to an email -- in emails you normally put your reply at the top of
any part of the email that you are replying to (at least in the business
world that I belonged to this was so). Indeed, mail clients that I have
used default the cursor to the top when replying, so it is easy and natural
to reply this way. And some of these mail clients are also news clients
which also put the cursor at the top. As someone pointed out, top posting
makes it easy to browse quickly through a thread via the preview pane to get
the gist without having to scroll every message.

Mozilla Thunderbird will pop the cursor down the bottom for you, in mail
as well as news, although this is configurable for both. It gives you a
choice of style (or a choice of which camp to upset. The MS offerings
give you no such choice, you are expected to post in the MS style (which
when it came out was contrary to everyone else's), expect to see MS'
offices change into a Borg cube anytime soon.

Perhaps the most important thing in this issue (which I don't think anyone
has mentioned, apologies if I am wrong), is not to MIX top and bottom
posting in a long thread! I have seen examples of this and it is most
confusing to follow the thread. I think that the rule should be that if an
established thread is either top or bottom, additional postings should
respect that -- unless the original postings have been trimmed to the point
that it doesn't matter anymore.

Will never happen, as you can see you top posted, but I am commenting on
particular parts of your post, not possible with top posting unless I
word my post to include most of what you wrote.

 

[Trevor Best]

Chris,
Thanks for the reference to the RFC which I have bookmarked. I think it
covers all the questions I was asking. Although as someone has pointed out
it is getting a little dated now.

So none of the 10 commandments have relevance anymore? Think I'll go out
and kill someone today and covert my neighbor's wife.