Re: What does this instruction mean: ANDDC #239 ?
From: Jonathan Kirwan (jkirwan_at_easystreet.com)
Date: 03/25/05
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Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 20:40:11 GMT
On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 19:52:58 -0000, "Joe Butler"
<ffffh.no.spam@hotmail-spammers-paradise.com> wrote:
>
>"CBFalconer" <cbfalconer@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>news:424366C1.CC5A8E63@yahoo.com...
>> Joe Butler wrote:
>> >
>
><snip>
>
>>
>> The problem with top-posting is that nothing hangs together
>> properly, and that it encourages failure to snip. Just the desire
>> to be understood should argue against it.
>>
>
>We'll just have to disagree on that one and live with it - I'm perfectly
>able to follow most threads using Outlook Express if it's something current
>and active (or groups.google if it's something I've found via a search).
>The posts (for me) that make things awkward are the ones that are
>bottom-posted (inline is fine for the reasons you state) because one does
>have to scroll down to see the reply after just reading the original.
Thanks for the bottom posting, here.... I actually read the comments.
The point isn't (and shouldn't be) so much as to what you can handle
well, when reading. If you are using Outlook (I won't touch it), and
it works well for you... then fine. Frankly, the problem for me isn't
so much that I can or cannot use a page-up and page-dn key (I can),
but more that I have to often dig around through the trailer to try
and see what part of it the comments applied to. By putting responses
into context, attached nicely to the parts of writing to which they
apply, it's less work on most readers. And for those with perhaps a
few thousand messages a day to scan in short order, it helps.
>I've read most of the links that someone else gave about top-posting, etc.
>but it just doesn't work for me. I cannot recall ever reading a top post
>and saying to myself, "I don't understand what's going on - I'll need to
>scroll down to look at the original context to understand that". I just
>scan thru, either looking for a particular point that I'm searching for,
>seeing if anyone's adding anything new to an ongoing conversation, making a
>mental note of replies that are not immediately important to me - yet I
>forsee as possibly useful in the future, etc. If I see a top-posted
>response in isolation, there's either enough info in the response (but
>devoid of context) for me to know if I should scroll down to see what caused
>that response to be made or to know that it's not worth scrolling down to
>get the original context.
Understood. You don't mind. But that seems a very self-centered
position to take. You might consider how others feel about it.
>I don't generally get confused if posts are not are not in a chronological
>order (and programmers that I've worked with would say that I'm easily
>confused :-/ ).
>
>IIRC, Chomsky points out that when one listens to a sentence, the brain is
>basically plugging each word into a tree which as each minor tree is
>populated can be decoded. Remember that word order may be reversed for
>some languages - "Le Lotus Bleu" for example seems so strange until you
>start to speak a language like this - then it is just normal. So, as far as
>I can see, the brain is constructed to make sense out of things that might
>not appear to be 'reasonably' ordered - and mine one, at least, has no
>problem doing the same thing with top-posted paragraphs going into the tree
>nodes.
This changes nothing about what experience reading lots of messages a
day has taught me -- and many others, as well. The fact is, that it
is usually easier (not always, but most often) to handle newsgroup
posts that are interspersed, as opposed to top posted.
Now, this is NOT so true for direct 1-on-1 email. It's perfectly fine
when I email employees or friends and we've been having a personal
conversation and we just write our responses above, leaving the bottom
for details should we need it. In these cases, it's a given that we
are each following a conversation. In the case of newsgroups,
however, there may be a 'keyword' that we 'click on' and then suddenly
wonder if we have something useful to say about it. But without some
sense of context present within immediate view nearby, we have to page
around or look back through older mail to see what may be the fuller
context and that takes time. But with comments immediately following
the points they refer to, it's much easier to see within short order.
>Have you seen the film Memento (http://imdb.com/title/tt0209144/). I wonder
>what your opinion is of that film.
I have.
Are you suggesting that this is a good way to write and communicate
with others?
>> > 2. I'm sorry if you need the attributions (I'm not sure what you
>> > mean here: headers, signature?) - it's very easy in my newsreader
>> > to get this info - perhaps you should get a better newsreader (as
>> > they say a lot round here).
>>
>> The attributions are the "Joe Blow wrote:" headers, which, when
>> synchronized to the count of leading '>' chars identify the authors
>> of quoted material. I consider it simple courtesy to give credit
>> (or blame) where it is due.
>
>Most people would understand that something's been quoted - and I don't
>think anyone reasonable is going to get upset if their name is missed out
>when someone else quotes in a reply. I'm sorry if Outlook Express doesn't
>follow the RFC you'd like it to - I like OE.
I hate OE. Used it for years because it "came with Windows." But I
won't even look back, now. It'll be some years before I even consider
the idea, again.
>> People fail to realize that articles need to stand by themselves.
>> They may be read later, after the local system has purged anything
>> else in the thread.
>
>Then go to groups.google if the incomplete content on the new server is so
>important that you must know what the full discussion was.
For me, using Agent, I keep a running context in a data base that
lasts 60 days. Usually, that's more than enough time, so I rarely
need to go to google.
But the point really is that it is important to know WHAT is being
responded to, in a poster's response. If that is completely missing,
then that is REALLY BAD. If it is all dumped to the end of the post,
then it's not so bad, but it still may make figuring out what the
writer was specifically talking to, difficult to fathom at times.
Even 20 seconds delay having to ferret this out is too much, usually.
It's not too much, if I decide to write a response, of course. But I
don't respond to most messages -- in fact, a very, very few of them.
So the seconds really add up for all those other messages.
><snip on Indian discussion>
And thanks for the consideration in your post, Joe. Appreciated.
Jon
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