[OT] TOP-POSTING [I STARTED THIS TOPIC]

[Michael Hennebry]

On Thu, 20 Jul 2006, Michael Yep wrote:

> I can't believe how much useless traffic has been generated because of
> this.  Remind me not to ask non-linux questions.

It's not all useless, though the heat/light ratio is rather high.

The morality of pounding on top-posters, even repeat offenders,
is something each of us has to decide between himself,
his conscience (if any), and his gods (if any).

I recommend that this discussion include the likelihood
of success and the likelihood of making things worse.

The anti-top-posters cannot win the argument based on general utility
because the top-posters are used to generating and reading top-posts.
To them, it's obvious that top-posting is good enough.
A claim that something else is better, *even if true*, does not
justify insisting on the elimination of something that is good enough.


On the other hand, pounding on those who refuse to trim quoted material,
especially repeat offenders, is definitely worth at least a little effort.
It might even reduce one's time in purgatory.
Quoting boilerplate is never evidence of intelligence or politeness.

When the bottom is on the same page as the top,
maybe some top-posters would move their responses down a bit.


BTW we don't need the html attachments either.
>From what I've read elsewhere,
a lot of senders of html attachments are unaware
of the html or don't know how to prevent it.

-- 
Mike   hennebry at web.cs.ndsu.NoDak.edu
"it stands to reason that they weren't always called the ancients."
                                                      --  Daniel Jackson