Who still complains about that?!
How dare he tell off a DOPER for top posting in his lowly newsnet newsgroup!
What’s top-posting?
Top-posting is where you place your reply above quoted text. Lots of people on the Usenet object quite strongly to this.
Putting your message at the top of the replied message instead of at the bottom. So if your quote below was the usenet message, this reply would have ‘top-posted’. It is often done on newsnet, and RARELY are people told off for it, especially in the newsgroup I got told off in. It’s not like I killed someone or caused any serious harm, or even slightly annoyed anyone (except the anal person who told me off)
In case there is something bad about it. I’d just like to clarify - I rarely do it anyway. the vast majority of my usenet posts are bottom-posted.
In this particular post I think I was dismissing something silly that the op had said, so didn’t do it the dignity of bottom-posting.
In case there is something bad about it. I’d just like to clarify - I rarely do it anyway. the vast majority of my usenet posts are bottom-posted.
In this particular post I think I was dismissing something silly that the op had said, so didn’t do it the dignity of bottom-posting.
I disagree The Clawman. I hardly ever see it even mentioned before someone told me off for it. And even then the strongest it got was “please don’t top-post” Does that count as objecting strongly?
It is only after the top-poster says something along the lines of “Piss off, I can do what I like!” that things start getting ‘strong’
Depends on the newsgroup I guess, ** Lobsang **. The ones I used to frequent always had one or two regulars who had a bee in their bonnet about this, but that was a few years ago. Never bothered me much one way or the other.
As an aside, your post prompted me to check out a couple of old haunts and they seem as busy as ever! I’d sort of been under the impression that the newsgroups were fading slowly away. I’m pleased that alt.folklore.urban in particular is still active. I wonder if the easy visibilty through Google Groups has given them a new lease of life?
What freaks me out when using Google Groups (don’t have direct access to newsgroup servers so rely on Google’s archives) is when there is a mixture of top and bottom posting in a single, lengthy thread.
I mean for flying fuck’s sake. If long threads and trying to work out whose indents are whose wasn’t confusing enough already.
Dear god, say it ain’t so! You mean… you mean… he didn’t acknowledge that you being capable of logging on to a message board makes you superior to all others?! :rolleyes:
So what’s the Emily Post on reply-to emails, including moderated Digests and distribution lists? If you include the email body you’re replying to (or edited-down parts of it), should your reply be on top or below the quoted section?
I have to confess, I “top post” a lot when replying to emails because for those people whose knives have two dull sides I don’t have much confidence that they’ll scroll down to see that it’s not just a verbatim quote of something they’ve already read.
Ahunter3 - that’s fine. In fact, most email programs do it that way automatically.
Messageboards and newsgroups are a different beast though. We read the whole page from top to bottom, so it only makes more sense to include responses under the text you’re responding to.
I’m sure glad they didn’t make this a capital crime. 
I lurk, and sometime post in alt.comp.freeware. It beats spending money on programs that are free. There are a few who top post and, yes, it causes some of the ‘old-timers’ to go postal. Most people don’t mind it. It’s funny on that newsgroup it’s mostly about free programs and how they work, links to them, etc. and they’re fairly short (2-3 replies, but the really long threads are all usually OT (thats where the top posting usually occurs). :rolleyes:
Top-posters be should with tormented much as non-linear communication possible as, to in order demonstrate frustration the comes of trying to out sort the narrative discourse.
Or you could just poke them in the eye with a pointed stick.
Learn a new thing everyday.
And there you have it. This was, as near as we can reconstruct, the moment where the whole world simply went straight to hell in a handbasket. Back to you, Tom
Thanks, Phil. For SD World News, I’m Tom Foolery. Stay tuned for your local weather, up next.
Oh boy! There’s going to be weather!
Weather? you mean REAL weather. There are places in the world where it’s hotter or colder than it was the day before?
“Mommy! What are those big white things up in the sky”
“Those are clouds dear”
“Mommy, what are clouds”
“I don’t know”
(That was my first 3 months in texas–no clouds, no rain, nothing but 95-102 winds 5-10mph from the southeast)
The nerve of those top-posters! Hopefully, that pointed stick is jagged, too.