OpenEuphoria

1. [OT] top-posting (was: Strings, again)

• Posted by "Juergen Luethje" <j.lue at gmx.de> Jun 07, 2004
• 424 views

Allen wrote:

> Pete Lomax wrote:
>>
>> On Sun, 06 Jun 2004 20:36:51 -0700, CoJaBo <guest at RapidEuphoria.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Pete Lomax wrote:
>>>> (rudely top-)posted by: CoJaBo <cojabo at suscom.net>
>>> I do not see why this is considered "rude".
>> Of course, I meant rude in the gentler sense of mildy impolite, I did
>> not mean to imply you were being offensive or insulting.
>> It is a general internet courtesy, which granted is not in Rob's
>> rulebook, and is not often observed here. If you are replying to a
>> specific point, it is helpful to indicate which. If you are not, then
>> you should cut the unnecessary text from the bottom of the post.
>>
>> I should know, I've done far ruder things than you 
>> Regards,
>> Pete
>
> I generally regard Pete's opinion to be close to infallible 
> (or at least extraordinarilly well considered), but I admit to being
> puzzled here. I do not see how a given choice of formatting to emphasize
> and focus on a specific point of view is even "impolite", much less rude.

In German Usenet, top-posting is called TOFU
(Acronym for "Text Oben, Fullquote Unten"
= [engl.] "text on top, fullquote at bottom")

In order to get unpopular as fast as possible in a German newsgroup, I
higly recommend to send repeatedly TOFU to the group. 
This text tries to explain the reason why (see especially 2.3 and 2.5):
   http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote2.html

After my experience, in English speaking groups this often is not
considered such a big impoliteness as in German groups. So interestingly,
there seem to be cultural differences.
For me, it's often at least strange to read an answer, before having
read the question.

> In fact, I think a cogent argument could be made that failing to take time
> and give thought to such formatting (for emphasis and focus) is
> inconsiderate (but probably not rude nor impolite).

In Usenet, and this also applies to mailing lists, one basic rule is:
"One person writes, many people read.".
So if e.g. a writer saves time because of not nicely formatting
his/her message, hundreds of other people have to spend additional
time in order to read that message. I don't consider this as polite.

Regards,
   Juergen