[OT] Top posting is a PITA [was : Prothon Prototypes vs Python Classes]
Ed Cogburn
edcogburn at hotpop.com
Thu Apr 1 06:46:13 EST 2004
R Baumann wrote:
> one follows the "standard" of the newsgroup one is participating in.
No such thing, since there is no way to enforce these "standards", and the
bottom-posters will always bottom post, and the top-posters will always top
post no matter where they are.
> Complaining whether one top posts or bottom posts is just a waste of
> time, and you, me, we, all know it.
Not always, sure there are the smart asses who top-post just to annoy people,
but a lot of top-posters do that because they are newbies and don't know that
it annoys so many people. Often they just need to find out how to change
their reader program's default, or simply discover that their reader does have
such an option.
> this is more irritating than whether one is "posting in the approved manner".
No it isn't, as long as someone sticks "OT" in the subject line, I don't mind
anyone talking about something else. If its identified as off topic, I can
always skip it. Top-posting on the other hand, is annoying because its
unnatural for most of us. Most of us may not say anything, and most of the
time its not "serious", but IMO, top-posting is far more irritating then OT posts.
> This thread was renamed to a different subject, but that was a
> half-dozen rants later in the thread than it needed to be.
Why complain about this when you're obviously still participating in this
thread two *dozen* posts after "OT" was inserted?
> Get my point? Naw, too much to expect. I've wasted both your time and my
> time with my own rant against your rants. :-)
Yep, everyone has their pet peeve, but isn't it kinda obvious by now that
there are a *lot* more people peeved about top-posting than there are peeved
at OT posts. :)
> A lot of you guys seem far more interested in starting arguments and keeping
> them running, than you are discussing the pros and cons of Python and
> providing helpful answers. Rein in your egos, no one, and I include myself,
> has anything helpful to contribute in this kind of "dust-up".
I've seen this complaint a thousand times too, and it never makes a
difference. You're basically asking people to stop being human, which is why
we designated "OT" as a warning for others that the conversation has drifted
far afield. However, we never did adopt "TP" so top-posters could warn
others, mainly because top-posting is not seen as inevitable, irresistible
human behavior, it is of course simply an example of laziness (or ignorance),
nothing more. While laziness is inevitable in some humans, its still not
accepted behavior. People arguing with one another is perfectly natural, and
has been going on for millenia, but for most of the world, its written
conversations are done top-to-bottom, not bottom-to-top.
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