In article , PJ Hunt
wrote:

I've always wondered why people posted the entire message at the top and now
I understand how it all started, but isn't it a bit archaic today? I'm
referring to your explanation about the delays etc.. Personally I have never
seen a response posted before I've seen the original post. If I had then
perhaps this would make more sense to me. Is usenet still this slow and
expensive today and if so, why on earth do people use it?

Because USENET goes places where there is no Internet, like central
Africa and the South Pole.

-john-

--
================================================== ==================
John A. Weeks III 952-432-2708
Newave Communications http://www.johnweeks.com
================================================== ==================

On Sat, 20 Nov 2004 09:01:51 GMT, wrote:

There are even groups (Hallicrafters for one) that encourage top
posting for their blind participants. So for all the blind pilots....

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 01:35:45 -0600, "M.S." wrote:

Can't speak for anybody else, but I top post so that those that have already
read the previous messages can easily see my response, it's right there at
the top. For those that need to be brought up to speed, (generally a
minority), they can scroll down to read the previous messages, which are
included intact (usually) so they can see everything in each message in it's
proper context.

What amazes me is how bent out of shape some people get over top-posting.
It's a matter of preference, what you like vs. what I like. Just like the
people who can't/won't use proper, grammatically correct English (I'm
speaking of those with English as their native language here), including
proper capitalization and punctuation. It annoys me to read these posts,
but I'm not going to make a big flaming war out of it. I don't insist on
perfection from others, as I'm not perfect myself. Nor do I expect others
to conform to my personal standards.

It just isn't that big a deal.

Four more postings like yours and this thread will die off
from lack of acrimony. :-)

Three to go.

Although I prefer to intersperse comments.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

It's the net Nazi way to weed out the lazy. I prefer reading top posts, too,
but the old timers set the standards and don't want their authority
questioned.

mike regish

"ShawnD2112" wrote in message
k...
Bob,

That brings up a question you might be able to answer for me. I've never
understood why top posting is seen as such an evil thing. What am I
missing?

Cheers,
Shawn

Good point. But again, you'll never convince the net Nazis.

mike regish

wrote in message
...

Not if you're used to reading correspondence files where the
latest communication is at the top odf the stack. If you're keeping up
with the conversation, you shouldn't have to scroll to the bottom to
see the idiot one-liners tacked onto the untrimmed former posting.

If you haven't been keeping up, you should be the one
inconvenienced.

"John A. Weeks III" wrote in

Because USENET goes places where there is no Internet, like central
Africa and the South Pole.

Well that makes absolutely no sense at all. Just as the majority of excuses
I've seen for top posting.

PJ

============================================
Here's to the duck who swam a lake and never lost a feather,
May sometime another year, we all be back together.
JJW
============================================

Should have been:

Just as the majority of excuses I've seen against top posting.

PJ

: That brings up a question you might be able to answer for me. I've never
: understood why top posting is seen as such an evil thing. What am I
: missing?

It depends on the group. Here in USENET world, bottom posting is common.
However in military circles, top posting is normal and most readers would
not see your reply if you posted on the bottom (it is an expedience thing).

On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 16:24:49 -0600, "Bill Denton"
wrote:

That's why, if I am going to intersperse comments through a message, I will
always top-post something like: "My comments in text".


For the benefit of those to dim to dope it out by observation?

On Sat, 20 Nov 2004 11:55:13 -0600, "John A. Weeks III"
wrote:

In article , PJ Hunt
wrote:

I've always wondered why people posted the entire message at the top and now
I understand how it all started, but isn't it a bit archaic today? I'm
referring to your explanation about the delays etc.. Personally I have never
seen a response posted before I've seen the original post. If I had then
perhaps this would make more sense to me. Is usenet still this slow and
expensive today and if so, why on earth do people use it?

Because USENET goes places where there is no Internet, like central
Africa and the South Pole.


And the means of propagation without the internet is ...?

"Omega" wrote in message
news:348od.65578$V41.36060@attbi_s52...

: That brings up a question you might be able to answer for me. I've
never
: understood why top posting is seen as such an evil thing. What am I
: missing?

It depends on the group. Here in USENET world, bottom posting is common.
However in military circles, top posting is normal and most readers would
not see your reply if you posted on the bottom (it is an expedience
thing).

Does DoD still have any internal newgroups or newsfeeds? My command gave up
their DoD newsfeed close to a decade ago, so I lost visibility of it. Most
of the DoD content I used to get from RN and VN or dialup BBS's (remember
those?) soon showed up on web pages. Speaking of 'remember whens' (in
answer to another posters question about Usenet propogation), does Fidonet
still exist?

aem sends.....
(just another old fart who started on Usenet with a text interface and a
green screen, on a hard-wired dumb vt-100 or dialing in to the UNIX server
on an 8086 with a lightning-fast 1200 baud modem.)