Re: [Pan-users] top posting

[Vigil]

Thanks for making me scroll through all of that to get at what you wanted to
say. You should have top-posted so I could have examined the quoted article you
were referring to at my leisure.

In case you're new to the discussion, I have quoted the article I am referring
to below.

And this came from the maker of Pan itself! ;)

On Tue, 21 Oct 2003, Charles Kerr charles-at-rebelbase.com |Pan Users' Mailing 
List| wrote:

>On Tue, Oct 21, 2003 at 02:29:33PM -0400, brett holcomb wrote:
>> And top posting makes things much more readable so we
>> don't have to wade through reams of text (even with good
>> snipping).  When you read hundreds of posts that's a
>> consideration - in fact some bottom/inline posts have
>> become so unreadable I don't even bother to look at the
>> thread anymore.  It's more efficent to look at the reply
>> on top and then if I want to review more I'll read the
>> rest of the text.  All I hear from those who want to force
>> bottom posting is that it's not "the right way to do it"
>> and "it's always been done that way". I know various
>> references are quoted sometimes but they aren't any more
>> valid or invalid than top posters.
>>
>> The bottom line is that either works and I should have the
>> choice to turn of a warning I consider misguided. In
>> something like this shouldn't be forced to adhere to
>> someones definition of right.  I understand what I'm doing
>> and don't want to have to keep telling any newsreader to
>> shutup and send the post.
>>
>> On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 19:17:22 +0100
>>  Brian Morrison <address@hidden> wrote:
>> >On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 10:15:07 -0700 in
>> >address@hidden Anthony
>> ><address@hidden> wrote:
>> >
>> >>However, when one is developing an argument or train of
>> >>thought which
>> >>isn't directly a reply to something previously written,
>> >>and one wants
>> >>to keep the previously written  material for context,
>> >>top posting is
>> >>appropriate. References in papers are footnotes, not
>> >>headnotes, and
>> >>similarly, top-posting draws the attention to the new
>> >>content, while
>> >>leaving the old content available for reference or
>> >>context.
>> >
>> >While this type of use is acceptable it is a small
>> >percentage of the
>> >total Usenet experience. Hence the warning is justified
>> >because it means
>> >that people are forced to be sure that's what they mean
>> >to do.
>
>This article is already a good example of why top-posting doesn't
>work well, as its flow goes from the middle (Anthony's message),
>then the lower middle (Brian's), then jumps to the top (Brett's),
>then to the bottom (mine).
>
>Either top-posting or bottom-posting works, but only if it's the
>same convention that everyone else is posting.  Since the vast
>majority of posters use bottom-posting, that's what Pan enforces.
>
>Anyway, I'm not going to get into an argument about the virtues
>of top- or bottom- posting.  That's been discussed many, many times
>before and the conclusions are available to anyone via Google.
>If you insist on writing annoying messages without having Pan annoy
>you back, the code to comment out is in check_top_posting() in
>pan/base/message-check.c.  I'm happy that you're using Pan, but
>I'm not going to put in a preferences button to disable these warnings.
>
>

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