top-posters will inherit the earth -- robert w hall In: alt.os.linux.slackware Eventually it happens to all of us. You are reading the replies to your messages on a mailing list or in a newsgroup and you see those dreadful words: "Don't top post" If you are lucky they included a link to this text so you could answer that question in the back of your brain "what the heck do they mean by this?". Well I am glad you asked. Up until today your replies have looked something like this: From: Me Re: World Domination Me too! I hate that stuff. You said: > I don't like tofu. > But I love cheese Now this is how it should have looked: From: Me Re: World Domination You said: > I don't like tofu. Me too! > But I love cheese I hate that stuff. Now you are asking yourself: Self, why do they care? What difference does it make? Well for one thing the world can now tell what you are talking about with a much better sense of context. There is no confusion as to what you are saying and you are less likely to piss people off accidently. Because we all know that if you are going to piss someone off you should do it deliberately. Here are some of the popular reasons for making sure you don't top post. 1) It is a standard. While that may sound like the stupidest reason in the world to you right now you will have to accept that standards do count for something and that if you don't give credit to those standards then people who do won't give credit to you. 2) A: Because it upsets the natural flow of reading. Q: Why is top posting so rude? -- Springfield In: alt.os.linux.slackware You and the person you are replying to may know what you are talking about but some Joe who has just joined the conversation may not. And without proper inline posting he won't know from the context of the conversation what it is you are agreeing to. 3) It is often noted that because of the way the Usenet propagates that a reply might arrive before the original. Which makes it nigh impossible to figure out what is going on without a cleanly marked form of quoting and replying. There are many other reasons but those are really the only ones that you need to know. Everything else is just a waste of time compared to those three. Now you may state something foolish like: "Why should I have to skip past things that have already been written to see the new text?" Well that is simply answered in two parts. 1) You don't have to. If you are using an intelligently designed application to read these posts then there is a feature or a key explained in the help feature that explains how you can toggle off or on the quoted material. No more excuses. 2) Because its not about you. You may know what you are responding to but 50,000 other people have no idea. Sometimes you just have to look beyond yourself. Written by: Faux_Pseudo and Proofed by ABCGi. :F_P:#################################Tue Jan 07 2003#################
Top Posting HOWNOT