Making a copy of a DVD

[Steve Hayes]

To compare a posting style to the unsafe operation of a motor vehicle is
ludicrious. The implied consequences are incomparable. Using a posting
style of one's choice doesn't place your health or life at risk.

Probably not, in most circumstances.

Back in the days I used to reply mid-post, or in-line. This made it look
more like a live conversation. It was an editing nightmare and if it wasn't
formatted properly or your recipient's reader sucked, the reader often
missed information. If the conversation required more than a single reply
from each person involved however... icky acky ooo, what a mess, and I loved
it. Thought it was the cat's meow.

It worked much better on BBS networks, where the reply symbols also showed the
initials of the person replying, but the older news technology survived, with
all its shortcomings, and BBS technology died. .

Top posting is where I'm at, and will stay at. Chances are, when you opened
this letter, you recognized that the reply was `right here' ... three
seconds and you found your goal. Life is good. 8)

Not sure what you're getting at there.

As for all those lovely arguments against Top-Posting that quote ancient
RFCs or netiquette. The internet and usenet were created by ... you guessed
it, Engineers. When left to their own devices, Engineers tend to design
things for reasons other than business and personal 'use'. Engineers like
big thick manuals. Bottom posting is like a big thick manual. A b c d e f g
h... neat, orderly. When you're an Engineer or a Scientist, you need to
know a b c d e in the order of a b c d e. That works... sure, but what
happens when you're a consumer, a user, a business? Do you care?

Top posting was the invention of Microsoft, which tried to use analogies of
-paper office procedures. Before you could learn how to use their software you
had to learn how to use paper procedures. No doubt the first car owners felt
more comfortable with a whip socket next to the drivers seat, and reins coming
through the dashboard, but images of filing cabinets really don't help much
when one is using computers.

 

[Erik Vastmasd]

To compare a posting style to the unsafe operation of a motor vehicle is
ludicrious. The implied consequences are incomparable. Using a posting
style of one's choice doesn't place your health or life at risk.

Back in the days I used to reply mid-post, or in-line. This made it look
more like a live conversation. It was an editing nightmare and if it wasn't
formatted properly or your recipient's reader sucked, the reader often
missed information. If the conversation required more than a single reply
from each person involved however... icky acky ooo, what a mess, and I loved
it. Thought it was the cat's meow.

As flame wars ebbed and flowed, I decided to give bottom posting a swing.
Sure it's great to have a complete conversation, chronologically sorted top
to bottom, but if the conversation was long, or the reply just as long, or
the topic too complex to edit down to a smaller quoted chunk, it could be
just as annoying to scroll through the entire message, and hope you find the
start of the reply without having to scroll back. Then what happened if you
edited out a chunk that was later deemed important?

This lasted about a week. I hated bottom posting ... then I switched to
top posting.

Top posting is where I'm at, and will stay at. Chances are, when you opened
this letter, you recognized that the reply was `right here' ... three
seconds and you found your goal. Life is good. 8)

As for all those lovely arguments against Top-Posting that quote ancient
RFCs or netiquette. The internet and usenet were created by ... you guessed
it, Engineers. When left to their own devices, Engineers tend to design
things for reasons other than business and personal 'use'. Engineers like
big thick manuals. Bottom posting is like a big thick manual. A b c d e f g
h... neat, orderly. When you're an Engineer or a Scientist, you need to
know a b c d e in the order of a b c d e. That works... sure, but what
happens when you're a consumer, a user, a business? Do you care?

Long are gone the days when the usenet was used solely by academia.
Top-posting is immediate. Top posting is personal. Top-posting is for the
masses.

Blogs = top post
Twitter logs = top post
News sites = top post
When was the last time you visited an information site that listed oldest
conversations first? A forum site probably ... but what else? Anything?
The point being, top posting offers you the shortest route, through the
least amount of effort, to the latest topics or information.

I will try to sum up my opinions for the reason for top posting in few
useful, daily life arguments.

1. Same concept goes for good paper filing systems. You file new to the
front ... where's the front of an email? top.

2. If you're vision-impaired, using a large font reader or you're listening
to your news reader, following a conversation thread, that is say, 20
replies deep, how fast will you dump that thread, important or otherwise if
you must wade through all that replied, quoted text, over and over, message
after message to reach the simple responses all the way down at the bottom?

3. If you're reading a `Thread' you probably already read it from the OP.
That's the purpose of the Thread title ... which BTW is at the top of the
thread message ... 8) As one reads through a thread, how much more time is
wasted scrolling or paging down through quoted text just to reach a reply
several paragraphs long that you then must scroll page-up through to find
the actual beginning of the reply? Or worse, to an AOL'esque single line or
monosyllabic response?

3. In this age of not just immediate gratification, but of the immediacy of
information, anything but top posting, wastes time. We all know what time
is ... money. My time is valuable, your time is valuable. Learn to
structure your thoughts quickly. Put it to print. Get it out there and
move on.

4. How many of your parents, or grandparents still can't grasp the concept
of scrolling down or how to pull the scroll bar down to see the other 50
lines of your message beyond the mere 15 they can see after blowing their
screen res up to 800x600?

You may have heard "The medium is the message. ... The content is the
audience". For USENET, the medium is instantaneous, and so too should be
the message... this is the very essence of Top-posting.

Having said all this, in the end, posting style is all about personal
choice. It's up to the author to decide what is the best method for getting
their message across. No one can say it's right or wrong, just of differing
opinion, or merits.

Unlike a private company, on USENET there is no policy, and no one & no way
to enforce it (unless it's a moderated ng of course). It's a public forum
for all dogs on the internet to have their chance to be praised, flamed or
ignored, regardless.

If you want popularity, go to Facebook or look in a mirror. USENET is not a
private conversation, it's a publc dissemination of information, discussions
and the occasional obligatory flame-war.

Dick Head.

 

[Stan Brown]

As flame wars ebbed and flowed, I decided to give bottom posting a swing.
Sure it's great to have a complete conversation, chronologically sorted top
to bottom, but if the conversation was long, or the reply just as long, or
the topic too complex to edit down to a smaller quoted chunk,

Part of posting is to do that editing.

Your argument is essentially that you want to put your stuff in the
wrong position because you can't be bothered to do the editing. In
other words, your time is more important than that of thousands of
readers. I don't think so.

And it's not like the editing is that hard to do.

 

[Stan Brown]

[130 lines or so of quoting, and a one-line comment]

Hon, you need to trim your quotes. Upside-down posters while
"there's so much to scroll through" as an argument for their wrong
style. Don't give 'em ammunition.

 

[Evan Platt]

Many eons ago in a particular group, there was one, and only one, poster
who was sight impaired and used an OCR to "read" the posts. She had found
that if the replies were top posted, they were easier to find. So we began
to top post replies just for her.

That's funny, you recently claimed that blind people can't use the
internet.

Which is it, bullis?

 

[Evan Platt]

That's funny, you recently claimed that blind people can't use the
internet.

Which is it, bullis?

Before you say no one can be that stupid to make such a comment....

Path:
news.usenetserver.com!s05-b13.iad!npeersf02.iad.highwinds-media.com!npeer02.iad.highwinds-media.com!news.highwinds-media.com!feed-me.highwinds-media.com!spln!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!news3
From: richard <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: alt.html
Subject: Re: blind men and page declaration
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2011 14:55:41 -0400
Organization: who
Lines: 28
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
References:
<3c6386ae-6c1c-4c09-8be0-4df72869a379@q16g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host:
pd92fa7727d52fcfde65d550a372f2db123adeff83e0dad7b.newsdawg.com
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
User-Agent: 40tude_Dialog/2.0.15.1
Xref: news.usenetserver.com alt.html:174846
X-Received-Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2011 18:56:23 UTC (s05-b13.iad)

That decision is absolutely ludicrous. What next, a paraplegic suing
for discrimination for being refused a job as a night club bouncer?

As far as I can see, it is not necessary at all to declare a file type
from HTML 5; having said that, leaving aside CSS, what alterations
would you make to the code of the following file? It has 10 errors
and 4 warnings, which I find strange for such a short file.

I for one, have a hard time trying to fathom that a blind person would
even
be using the internet. While a keyboard may be outfitted with braille,
how
ya gonna make a screen to display braille so that a blind person could
read
it with his fingers? It can't be done.

Although the Australian court in the one case said the website had to
use
"ALT" tags for images, how is a blind person gonna read those notes?

So I have to make my website accessible to ONE person who just might
be
blind? I don't think so. Further, there is no known coding to make a
website "readable" by a blind person.

Years ago, there was a certain person in 24hoursupport.helpdesk who
was
visually impaired and used a scanning device to read the posts. So
many of
us began top posting replies so she could find the replies easier.

For you Evan, this was long before you could even read.

 

[Wolf K]

To compare a posting style to the unsafe operation of a motor vehicle is
ludicrious. The implied consequences are incomparable. Using a posting
style of one's choice doesn't place your health or life at risk.

[...]

Quite so.

But there are such things as "conventions", including those for
spelling. Driving rules are conventions, particularly urgent ones, since
violating them will kill you and other people. Violating spelling can
also be lethal: there have documented case where medication names or
doses wer misspelled, and people died.

We have conventions when leaving it up to the variations of personal
choice causes at least inconvenient and at worst serious harms. Courtesy
is following the conventions. Or better: courtesy is giving some
personal choice in the interest of smoother and more pleasant social and
other relationships.

"Keep your stick on the ice. We're all in this together. Remember, we're
pulling for you."

HTH
Wolf K.

 

[Robert Sudbury]

Top-posting is inclusive; it doesn't exclude or frustrate those users not
able to quickly scan a post; whatever their reason. That one time is the
only time you _know_ of that your actions assisted someone else. Why stop a
good thing? You may trivialize the reasoning here, but I will not.

Top posting is a form of snipping, in that you know the moment you hit
quoted text, you can stop reading. You could simply snip all previous
content from your reply, relying solely on the thread topic line, but then
you'd be cutting your conversation boat adrift and losing your audience
altogether.

Inline posting is great for personal emails, I enjoy it also, but when more
than just a couple of folks are able to contribute, tracking can be
hellacious. However, even in personal emails, inline posting can cause too
many people to lose track of their thoughts. Especially if the conversation
lasts more than a couple of posts, or if once again, you're dealing with
someone less computer literate; someone who doesn't grasp the concept of
scrolling down to read more. Counting hash mark quote depth to keep in-line
posted thoughts in their relative thread is also time consuming.

I agree that if someone joins into a conversation late in the thread, and
they are unwilling or are unable to pick up the original post and subsequent
threaded replies, that if the entire thread is top-post replies (maintained
without snipping), catching up will be arduous reading bottom up, one reply
at a time.

Moderated newsgroups aside, which this ng isn't, there is no royalty
governing usenet posts. Usenet in general is about the free exchange of
ideas and information. Read that word, free. Also part of Freedom; which
includes the freedom of choice.

I can only hope to persuade someone with my thoughts, I cannot enforce them
here and neither can you yours. I am open to compelling arguments to
change, but right now I see more reasons to continue top posting than to
stop.

<demonstrating the use of snipping>

Many eons ago in a particular group, there was one, and only one, poster
who was sight impaired and used an OCR to "read" the posts. She had found
that if the replies were top posted, they were easier to find. So we began
to top post replies just for her.

That was the only time I have ever come across where top posting was
wanted. One of the netiquette things in usenet is also, when replying a
single line, to a thousand line post, snip the damn crap!
No sense making others scroll ten thousand lines just to read "damn!".

In many cases, inline posting to posts is considered appropriate depending
on the nature of the original post. What is royally frowned upon, is when
you're replying to a reply to a reply to a reply and top post your answer.
The reader now has to try and figure to what you are replying.

Now let's all just get along and get back to work or have a party.

__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus
signature database 6913 (20120224) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com

--
[Robert]


__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 6915 (20120225) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com

 

[Robert Sudbury]

I miss BBS'ing ... I don't miss the monster long distance phone bills I
racked up each month as I scoured the world for interesting boards. 8)

What I'm attempting to convey in my comment:

.... is that when you opened your reader program, when you selected this
message to read, what did you see first? This. This text. This top-posted
reply. This effort took all of three seconds for you to recognize. No
other effort, no matter how small, was required by you to process my reply.
No mousing, no scrolling. Chances are very good that you grew up in a
culture that reads top to bottom. And where is my reply text right now?

Unless the US patent office has cemented its position in the deep end of the
pool on yet another frivolous patent, no one can seriously lay claim to
inventing top-posting as you claim Microsoft did.

My use of the visual style of placing thoughts into a filing cabinet is
analagous to good record keeping and documentation. The fresher the data,
the more likely you'll want to access it first, with the least effort. The
older the thoughts, the further back, the less likely you'll need to see
them or want to work your way through them to reach the more recent entry.

Probably not, in most circumstances.


It worked much better on BBS networks, where the reply symbols also showed
the
initials of the person replying, but the older news technology survived,
with
all its shortcomings, and BBS technology died. .


Not sure what you're getting at there.


Top posting was the invention of Microsoft, which tried to use analogies
of
-paper office procedures. Before you could learn how to use their software
you
had to learn how to use paper procedures. No doubt the first car owners
felt
more comfortable with a whip socket next to the drivers seat, and reins
coming
through the dashboard, but images of filing cabinets really don't help
much
when one is using computers.


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop
uk

__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus
signature database 6913 (20120224) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com

--
[Robert]


__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 6915 (20120225) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com

 

[Robert Sudbury]

Despite your apparent lack of conversation skills, I still scrolled through
to the bottom of your reply to read your one-line insult.

I respect your choice to bottom post, but I suggest you try to articulate
yourself in a less demeaning manner.

As for your argument pro or con, I see none.

Dick Head.

__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus
signature database 6913 (20120224) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com

--
[Robert]


__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 6915 (20120225) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com

 

[Robert Sudbury]

Quite the opposite. I consider all time valuable.

I've just saved you three seconds by not bottom posting. By entering into
this conversation, you've demonstrated to me that you have already invested
time into understanding the nature of the conversation; the give and take in
the opposing sides of the argument and validated to me that it is
unnecessary for me to force you to read/scroll through the conversation all
over again.

Be honest now, when you opened or first viewed this message, what part of
the body of this reply did you see first?

Part of posting is to do that editing.

Your argument is essentially that you want to put your stuff in the
wrong position because you can't be bothered to do the editing. In
other words, your time is more important than that of thousands of
readers. I don't think so.

And it's not like the editing is that hard to do.


--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Shikata ga nai...

__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus
signature database 6913 (20120224) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com

--
[Robert]


__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 6915 (20120225) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com

 

[Steve Hayes]

... is that when you opened your reader program, when you selected this
message to read, what did you see first? This. This text. This top-posted
reply. This effort took all of three seconds for you to recognize. No
other effort, no matter how small, was required by you to process my reply.
No mousing, no scrolling. Chances are very good that you grew up in a
culture that reads top to bottom. And where is my reply text right now?

In some strange places, it seems.

 

[Robert Sudbury]

Once again, in context, we are not discussing the merits of the accuracy or
efficacy of the freedom of choice of a style that could in any way, have any
effect on one's health.

I otherwise appreciate your well-crafted reply, simultaneously endorsing and
discrediting my choice in one breath. 8)

To compare a posting style to the unsafe operation of a motor vehicle is
ludicrious. The implied consequences are incomparable. Using a posting
style of one's choice doesn't place your health or life at risk.

[...]

Quite so.

But there are such things as "conventions", including those for spelling.
Driving rules are conventions, particularly urgent ones, since violating
them will kill you and other people. Violating spelling can also be
lethal: there have documented case where medication names or doses wer
misspelled, and people died.

We have conventions when leaving it up to the variations of personal
choice causes at least inconvenient and at worst serious harms. Courtesy
is following the conventions. Or better: courtesy is giving some personal
choice in the interest of smoother and more pleasant social and other
relationships.

"Keep your stick on the ice. We're all in this together. Remember, we're
pulling for you."

HTH
Wolf K.

__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus
signature database 6915 (20120225) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com

--
[Robert]


__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 6915 (20120225) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com

 

[Robert Sudbury]

You've just provided an argument against `snipping'. You've just taken a
portion of a conversation out of context. By doing so you illegitimately
attempt to validate your own opinion.

By removing the line that precedes what you've quoted:

"What I'm attempting to convey in my comment:"

.... you've corrupted the conversation to your own ends by making it appear
that I've just either bottom-posted or replied in-line; causing me to appear
as a hypocrite.

The section your are referring to should properly read, and I quote:

"What I'm attempting to convey in my comment:

.... is that when you opened your reader program, when you selected this
message to read, what did you see first? ..."

If usenet content was friendlier towards quoting, indentation and other
formating tools, I could have made a more elaborate quoting implementation,
however, it is also obvious that once you read the mis-quoted element in
context, the portion of text you have deliberately edited is meant as quoted
content.

In some strange places, it seems.


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop
uk

__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus
signature database 6915 (20120225) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com

--
[Robert]


__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 6915 (20120225) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com

 

[Ken Blake]

Your argument is essentially that you want to put your stuff in the
wrong position because you can't be bothered to do the editing. In
other words, your time is more important than that of thousands of
readers. I don't think so.

And it's not like the editing is that hard to do.

Here's my view (basically similar to yours).

Bottom posting is bad because you have to scroll down (sometimes way
down) to get to the reply.

Top posting is even worse because you first have to scroll down to
find what is being replied to, and then back up to read the reply.

But if you do a good job of editing the text in the message you're
replying to, it hardly matters whether you bottom post or top post. If
both your reply and what you are replying to can fit on the screen,
top or bottom doesn't matter much.

But if you are replying to several different points, then as far as
I'm concerned, inline posting, with the reply to each post following
what is being replied to, is necessary. Anything else muddies the
waters terribly.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Despite your apparent lack of conversation skills, I still scrolled through
to the bottom of your reply to read your one-line insult.

I respect your choice to bottom post, but I suggest you try to articulate
yourself in a less demeaning manner.

As for your argument pro or con, I see none.

Robert, I suggest you don't bother with this argument any more. No one
will change their minds, some insults will be traded, and often, it
will still be necessary to scroll to the bottom of a long series of
replies to learn that the poster forgot to type his contribution, or
that he did remember but *should* have forgotten

news:[email protected]...

<SNIP>

 

[Robert Sudbury]

I was awaiting one last reply to close out my arguments.

I honestly sat myself down and put some thought into my position on posting
style. I'm not averse to change, but I see no compelling reason to change
at this time.

Before this NG is polluted further by off-topic shenanigans, I will leave
this thread with these parting thoughts.

My initial reason for hijacking this thread was to defend another poster's
right to post in the style of their choice. I think I've defended his/her
right, established my opinion and generated some mostly civil discourse.

My opinion is that posting style is subject to context and choice.

In the context of this un-moderated newsgroup, that is neither relevant to
nor implies connection to life-saving medical or scientific research, legal
consul, private, corporate, governing or theological official discussion,
the choice of posting style is entirely up to the poster, and no one way is
right or wrong. We all have our personal reasons for choosing a particular
style and that is all the reason one needs.

Finally, further to my re-thinking of my personal choice for posting style,
I realized that I came to my conclusion a very long time ago. For most
people these days who still participate in usenet newgroups, technology
often plays a major role in our lives and lifestyles. As such, we are more
aware of technological change than most. Technology by its very nature is
all about change; so I thought.

Since I last pondered my reasons, what has changed that could possible sway
me away from my choice? One particular thought reinforced my opinion.

With the advent of cell phone technology, WiFi and the proliferation of
handheld devices, especially tablets and smart phones with their small
displays, if I must read newsgroups through any one of a number of mobile,
wireless devices, which posting style would I prefer to be faced with?

Robert, I suggest you don't bother with this argument any more. No one
will change their minds, some insults will be traded, and often, it will
still be necessary to scroll to the bottom of a long series of replies to
learn that the poster forgot to type his contribution, or that he did
remember but *should* have forgotten


<SNIP>

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)



__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus
signature database 6915 (20120225) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com

--
[Robert]


__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 6915 (20120225) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com

 

[Char Jackson]

What I'm attempting to convey in my comment:


... is that when you opened your reader program, when you selected this
message to read, what did you see first? This. This text. This top-posted
reply. This effort took all of three seconds for you to recognize. No
other effort, no matter how small, was required by you to process my reply.
No mousing, no scrolling. Chances are very good that you grew up in a
culture that reads top to bottom. And where is my reply text right now?

No mousing, no scrolling? You're completely overlooking the fact that
I had to scroll down to see who and what you were replying to, then
scroll back up to read your reply. If I had skipped the scrolling and
simply started reading your reply, I wouldn't have had any context.

So while you apparently think you're doing your readers a favor,
you're actually doing the opposite.

 

[Char Jackson]

Quite the opposite. I consider all time valuable.

WHAT is quite the opposite? Opposite of what? (Hang on while I scroll
down to see who and what you're replying to.) Ok, I'm back. Thanks for
making me scroll down and back up in order to make sense of your post.

I've just saved you three seconds by not bottom posting.

Hmm, but you cost me a lot more time than that by making me scroll
down and back up. What is it you're trying to accomplish, exactly? Are
you quite sure this isn't just a case of being too lazy to place your
comments where they make contextual sense?

Be honest now, when you opened or first viewed this message, what part of
the body of this reply did you see first?

I saw the answer first, then I scrolled down to see the question, and
finally back up to re-read the answer. Thanks, I guess.

By the way, NOD32 can be configured to stop announcing that it has
checked your post prior to submission. We don't really need to see
that.

 

[Char Jackson]

You've just provided an argument against `snipping'. You've just taken a
portion of a conversation out of context. By doing so you illegitimately
attempt to validate your own opinion.

I did??! Oh wait, let me scroll down to see to whom you're directing
those comments. Oh, ok, Steve Hayes. Thanks for making me scroll down
and back up again. You could have saved me, and everyone else, the
effort, you know, just by placing your reply properly.