Newsgroup Etiquette

Little guideness (also in my sig):

If a preference works for a great many people (as top-posting does), then it must be valid. I don't see thousands of people posting in all-caps. Your analogy therefore is not valid.

Do you think all usenet posts should be in English, since that is your preferred language?

andyt

The only point I see is that you just *cannot* bring yourself to appreciate that top-posting is a preferred and welcomed style by thousands upon thousands of people. Your analogies are always wrong because they are with practices which are either dangerous or entirely unaccepted. Y'see those are not driving styles that are perfectly accepted and welcomed by loads of other people. However top-posting

Your analogy fails.

If you want to compare top-posting to something else, then you have to compare it to something which is also preferred by a great many people

- such as motorbikes versus cars.

Again, wrong. You do not support courtesy because you expect other people to adopt your preferences. It's selfish and it's ignorant.

No, it was a question . The question still remains - do you expect that everyone should follow your preference WRT the car you drive?

Again, no - it was a *question*. If you'd already said it, I wouldn't be asking would I...

Er.. right, once again.. it's a *question*.

However, I think you're perhaps getting the point. To make such requests based on your own preferences would be ridiculous. I'm glad to see that in at least some walks of life, you're happy to accept the choices other people make and don't expect them to make the same choices as you.

Running around?! LOL!

This is not about a flamewar (have I flamed you *at all*?), this is merely trying to help you adjust your self-centered attitude with regard to expecting everyone else to adopt your preferences. Whenever I back you inter a corner, you bail. However, you then start to whine elsewhere with the same botched and false arguments. This, as I say, speaks volumes.

I would suggest the same WRT your top-post whining. If you hadn't decided to start moaning about it, I wouldn't be responding now would I..

andyt

Good points, very well put.

The demographics and usage patterns of the internet have changed massively over the years and this is due in large to the way the technology is changed. Years ago, people would be on dial-up and would access usenet once or twice a day. Trimming was much more important then. Now that people can dip into usenet far more often for shorter times, a much chattier style of post has emerged - posts that often contain only a single point. These posts do not require context quoting, hence top-posting makes the most sense.

Times have changed, that's all.

andyt

As Jules points out, these are not comparable situations. Remember that top-posting is perfectly acceptable to and is the preferred style for a great many people. That's what makes it a preference. If you want to find a *correct* analogy rather than the crap you've been coming out with (which has only served to show you don't understand the situation), then you'll have to find one where many people prefer the alternative - which is not the case in your above analogy.

Indeed it doesn't and therefore you can't expect everyone to adopt

andyt

These are only someone's opinions put down in HTML. Bear this in mind.

andyt

Supported by a large majority of posters in the groups I participate in.

Majority preference doesn't make minority preferences invalid or incorrect - and it would be ludicrous to think that majority preferences should be stamped out just because they are a minority.

Think about how that would translate to real life - it would seem ridiculous would it not?

andyt

Only as a matter of degree, not type. Some folks have preferences for chewing with their mouth open, or passing gas in public. If anything is acceptable, everything is acceptable.

Actually, most posts in most newsgroups are still posted correctly. Top-posters are yet a small minority.

Wrong. Folks who are deliberately rude often find themselves on the outside looking in. Post OT, all in caps, binaries, etc, and you find yourself killfiled or your account TOS-terminated in short order.

Amusingly ironic.

The very same logic that says things should be read from bottom to top. Newsgroups aren't threaded from newest to oldest, at least not in any newsreader I've seen. Even so, most newsreaders will display posts with the newest content, then thread them by first to last post. Top-down.

Post correctly? Of course not. After all, whatever *you* want is the only important thing.

E.P.

I see it just fine. They are in a small minority, and are generally repudiated.

entirely

Heh. Driving the speed limit in the passing lane is not inherently dangerous, and is not illegal everywhere. Posting in caps or html might run afoul of some newsgroup charters, but in alt.* groups, most anything goes. That does not imply that those behaviors are not rude.

It's merely a matter of degree.

LOL. You have just abdicated the argument. Those behaviors are on display every day, by hundreds of people. And that's just in this area. In big cities, you'll see multiples of the same rude driving behavior.

People still claim the world is flat, that the moon landings were faked, and that the Earth is 6000 years old.

Doesn't make them any less wrong for holding sincerely onto their false beliefs.

people

Riding a motorbike (the mere act of riding) has never been considered rude behavior. Your analogy fails miserably. Grasp another straw.

If they were merely *my* preferences, you'd have a point. But they were standards of behavior set long before your or I ever wrote our first usenet posts.

An attempt at a strawman construction. As are the rest of the "questions." Again, these standards exist separate of me. The majority holds them as correct.

If proper posting were merely my own preference, you'd be entirely correct. But it is not. It is the preference of the majority, and existed previous to MS Outlook and other wrongly-top-post-default programs.

In matters of ettiquette, I *do* expect people to make the same choices. That's how a community gets along. I don't clog the passing lane, and I expect my fellow drivers to do the same. I use center turn lanes, don't swing wide to turn right, don't left turn into the far right lane, and all sorts of other driving behavior that helps everyone (including me) get where they are going with the least amount of hassle.

A figure of speech. Finding all of my posts and humping them to pound your chest.

Sure, if name-calling or other ad hominem commentary can be called flaming.

Again, they are not merely *my* preferences.

So, you can't control your own posting. Sad.

E.P.

Then driving the speed limit in the passing lane is valid. As is almost universal cell phone use in public.

It's a preference, isn't it? Just a matter of degree.

In groups that are customarily English, yes. But I do see your strawman attempt.

E.P.

Really? Is that why it quotes guidelines from Microsoft and from RFC1855?

Jules is wrong, and so are you. The situations are only a matter of degree.

There are plenty of rude cell phone behaviors, this one is just one most folks can agree on. But it's merely a preference, and the small minority prefers it, so by your logic, it's acceptable.

Those who don't know any better, those who are purposefully rude, or those who read everything from the last page to the first page - yup, that's true.

See the cell phone references above. Dream up some driving ones. Like this:

You're left turning out of a business onto a five-lane street. (Two lanes in either direction and a turn lane.) The car in front of you is also turning left. You wait and wait and wait - the turn lane is clear, the traffic from the right is clear, and the other guy isn't going. Yup, that's right, when he finally goes, it's because traffic is clear in both directions. He's held you up because of his preference. You, of course, celebrate his preference, right?

Oh, but if it were just *my* preference, I wouldn't be having this conversation with you. But it isn't. The netiquette has existed for quite some time before either one of us entered usenet. As I said before, if you can find anywhere even remotely official-looking that supports top-posting as a preferred method, go ahead and link it. History *and* popular opinion stand against you.

E.P.

And I noticed you posted properly. Thanks. Wasn't hard, was it?

Dave

Actually, Arne agrees with us. It's Jules and Andy that seem to have comprehension problems.

E.P.

You're not married are you?

Sadly, we proper-posters are often happily married, with children. Women seem curiously drawn to a man with etiquette. Makes the "bad boy" thing tough to carry off, and thus ruins one's prospects for playing the field for decades or causes one to live a lonely, boring life defending poor behavior in usenet.

Get a life, Jules.

E.P.

Classic usenet irony.

E.P.