Top-posting [Was: Installing with apt-get]

[Kevin O'Gorman]

On 6/22/06, Alexander Skwar <listen at alexander.skwar.name> wrote:
> Steve Tripp wrote:
> > Bottom posting is by far the most inefficient way to read lists like
> > this that are active and have many additions.
>
> Pardon, but that's absolutely wrong. As somebody already wrote,
> it's very hard to write a well formulated top-post. With a post
> in the way I do it right now, it's not so hard - the writer
> simply quotes what he sees as relevant and the responds.

"Simply" !!!  If it's so simple, why do so many posters make hash
of the discussion?  I submit it's no easier, nor more frequently
seen, to write a well-formulated interspersed posting.  Why else
do we also see so many complaints about the amount of snippage
in various people's postings?

My own impression is that the loudest voices are just complaining
at anyone who doesn't do it the way "I" do it.  The rest of it is
all just hand-wavingly vague assertions about what is "clearly"
the best way to post.  None of it very convincing, my own posts
of course being excepted. :o)

>
> >  Bottom posters also seem
> > to be the loudest when it comes to complaining,
>
> Rightly so, as top-posting is a "new" phaenomenon and people should
> be made aware right away, that they are (usually) mis-behaving
> by top-posting.

What in the *world* do you think is new about this?  My own experience
is that the discussion was already raging in 1984.

>
> > and they also seem to
> > overlook the fact that their complaints dilute the technical issues
> > actually being discussed.
>
> What technical issue?
>

Point taken.

-- 
Kevin O'Gorman, PhD