[email protected] wrote:
> Andrew Muzi writes:
>
>>>> Do not top post. I fixed it for you. In the cases reported I
>>>> spent _less_ time with the brakes on. I was not dragging the
>>>> brakes as you say.
>
>>> I am curious about the "top post" comment. It appears that bottom
>>> posting encourages bandwidth waste and the inclusion of way too
>>> much verbiage, especially in longer threads. Since all prior
>>> occurances in the thread would likely contain the same stuff, seems
>>> redundant.
>
>>> I realize that some folks use readers that make this desirable, and
>>> I'm not flaming. Just curious about why this became the "way" to
>>> do it on usenet?
>
>> Secondly, it is possible to edit or 'snip' quoted material to
>> enhance readability while retaining the prior writer's point. (It's
>> also possible to chop up another's words into a twisted version
>> unlike his intent but that's another topic)
>
>> .backwards running is conversation of flow the if as, oddly reads
>> posting Top .annoying posting top find ,me including ,people Some
>
> Well said. I suspect another aversion to sequential (bottom) posting
> is that the writer has made up his mind what he wants to say and
> doesn't care what the previous writer(s) have offered that might
> conflict with his views.
Okay, it's time for a rant. That is exactly at the heart of it.
Prior to about 1995 ALL email/usenet used bottom posting, or
interspersed posting, writing the reply directly below that which
you're replying to, because the vast majority of internet email/usenet
users were highly intellegent people, and it just made sense. Nobody
questioned it. And the internet was solely the domain of elite
universities and UNIX. Everyone had access to so-called "bulletin
boards" that you could connect to with a modem, but the discussion
groups were small, and populated by many uninteresting people. The
early '90's saw some corporatations desiring to "connect" to this
wonderful internet (at great expense), mainly pushed by people fresh
out of the universities, but this met with a lot of resistance from
the established middle managers with "mainframe" mentality,
middle-aged mainframe programmers, and the stereotype that these young
techno-geeks couldn't possibly have anything useful to add to any
debate. First a few corporations connect relatively inexpensively via
modem, then some got leased lines, and started putting real money into
it. If you were involved in "research", or putting together a large
group of programmers, they would allow it. But they were the new kids
on the block, and they threatened the power of the established elite.
This corresponds to the downgrading of the engineer, e.g. in NYT the
engineers who designed and built the bridges were hero's early in the
20'th century, but were largely forgotten and ingored by the '60's,
when the non-technical manager and politician took credit for
everything.
Come 1995, the internet was getting pretty well established in the
fortune 50/100/500, and the middle managers felt "forced" into using
this medium when TONS of money started getting funneled into the
"internet", primarily from dictates from above, wishing to replace the
extravagant spending on mainframe and their programmers with so-called
mid-range systems, with potential saving beyond comprehension. Most of
my jobs in the '90's were involved in efforts to displace the
established elite, and the mainframers. But god forbid some young
technically minded person manage efforts of this sort, so these
old-timers were in charge, and they usually managed to bring about
failure, due to their incompentence. Many times these established
middle managers had their secretaries print out the email, or screen
it. One told me once that he didn't think he was obligated to even
look at it.
Meanwhile, more friendly interfaces (apple/windoze) became
email/internet capable, because there ain't no way these non-tech
managers were going to use a UNIX box, e.g. Sun/HP/etc, or, god
forbid, an ascii terminal, so common in the universities, although a
grad student and the profs always had their own Sun workstations,
courtesy of NSF. Also, because of the TONS of corporate money getting
poured into the internet, lots of real morons got jobs working with
computers. They just couldn't find enough people to fill all the
jobs. So these 2 groups flourished, and established top posting, to
the horror of those with years of hard work and experience. Usually
though, the top posts were only one or two lines, at most, so it was
somewhat managable. Many times the top-post is "call me".
The reasons for topposting are simple: They don't care about what
others techies have to say; they don't understand it and are too lazy
to learn because they know they can never compete on that playing
field, and they are too incompetent to edit text, or even move the
cursor. It's hard enough just typing complete sentences. Forget
about paragraphs.
Bill Westphal
>
> A reason for not including all previous author's names is that the
> response is to what the last person wrote which obviously covers what
> went before. If a response to those is intended, one can scroll back
> to do that directly. Besides, a stack of names at the top or even
> interspersed makes unclear what transpired. the > >> >>> >>>> are
> there to make clear from how far back the citations are.
>
> Jobst Brandt
