Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (4348 mails)

[Kevin McLauchlan <kevinmcl@xxxxxxxx>]

On Sunday 13 October 2002 18:46, Theo v. Werkhoven wrote:

Carlos and Theo went just a teensy bit overboard, saying 
things like:

> > It is now time to take a stand. Top-posting, that is, posting 
ones reply above
> > the quoted text, is a symbol of darkness.  It represents evil.  

and like:

> Is it really that hard to do? Delete text to a piece of quoted 
text
> where you want to reply to, type your response, delete text down 
to the
> next piece of text you want to reply to etc.
> Ignoring the relevant RFC1855 in mailing lists and usenet posts 
is just
> plain rude and totally disrespectful of the people the you might 
want to
> get help from.
> For me it is very simple: topposter and bulkquoters will be 
ignored, period.

Allow me to state an additional fact or three, 
and then to derive the inescapable conclusion 
from your posts:

The people who top-post -- and I'm one of them, 
unless I remember to switch styles for the Linux 
audience (ok, for SOME of the Linux audience) -- 
DO tend to be Windows users.  But, you COULD 
ask yourself why that is so.

Somebody already pointed the way by saying 
that they tend to be BUSINESS users. It's a simple 
fact of life that most of the mature computer users 
in the world tend to be business users. Most of 
the people who run computers at home have 
them at work.  In fact, if somebody has a 
computer in only one location, that location is 
more likely to be work, than home.
(I'm discounting all the teenagers who have 
computers that they didn't pay for...)

Now ask yourself why Windoze mailreaders tend 
to favor top-posting (or TOFU, as the Germans 
like to call it). Before you answer that, consider 
that Bill Gates made billions by catering to what 
people want, and how they like to do things, 
especially in business.  In olden days, before e-mail, 
I would often receive inter-office folders containing 
memo packages. The most recent memo was always 
on top, with the rest stapled/clipped together in 
reverse order, with the earliest one at the back of the 
stack.

They did it that way because it worked. Most people 
wanted only the summary or the most recent 
arguments or decisions on top. If they needed to 
refresh their memories, they could dig down in 
the stack.

This arrangement got duplicated when office 
e-mail came along.  Sometimes, people respond 
to a multi-point e-mail by "My comments are 
embedded, below". Otherwise, they add their 
two-cents worth at the top, so that busy executives 
and managers can see the latest at a glance.

Therefore, MS Outlook and other Windows mail 
readers tend to default to that model of message 
trail handling.  Let me say that another way:
most of the business mail users in the world
a) have learned that method
b) prefer that method.

Notice that I didn't say it is somehow mystically 
right. I just said it's the learned and preferred 
method of the vast majority of users BECAUSE 
they happen to be in business. Even the legions 
of students and academics don't keep to the 
"right and righteous" method, once they finally 
cut the umbilical, stop sucking at the teat, and 
go get real jobs.

Now, we come to the analysis part. 
Unless you have spent your entire computer-
using life, sheltered in academia, then you 
were already aware of the preponderance of 
Windows in the business/commerce world, 
and that top-posting is the way it's done.

So, based on that, what you are saying -- by 
badmouthing Windows users in general -- is 
that you prefer to keep Linux in the minority 
ghetto. You don't WANT it to make its way 
onto the desktops of the business drones of 
the world.  That would destroy its cachet of 
"specialness" or whatever.

If Windows users actually began using Linux 
in real life, you'd have to move on to BSD or 
something.  Let's call them names and make 
them feel like the unwanted scum they are, 
instead.

That said, I agree completely that in a simple 
discussion (as opposed to a business, decision-
making e-mail trail), it is bad manners to 
reply without editing/trimming.

Oh, and I especially liked this bit from Carl:

> >'Windoze Users' and shall be shunned by 
> > all who honor the good and noble traditions
> > which created the Internet.

The good and noble traditions that CREATED 
the Internet?   Well, let me see if I can recall...
Oh yes... war.
Several laboratories and research centers in 
the US military and weapons-research area 
were linked together, mainframe to mainframe.
Does the name DARPA ring a bell?
Then, they hooked up a few university computer 
centers to their little network, so that they could 
keep the research and information trading 
briskly among the military researchers and the 
academics. 

The network proved to have utility for those 
reasons and for other reasons, so it gradually 
expanded to include other institutions of 
higher learning. Then, it just sat there for a 
while, with not a whole lot of improvement, 
until business came along.  Then, it took off 
until it became a household word.

Is that the "noble tradition" of which you speak?
I'm nearly 50. I was in university computing rooms 
in the early Seventies, and I've been associated 
with computers and comms all my working 
life.  In other words, I was there for most of 
the life of the internet.  Somehow, I seemed to 
have missed the "noble traditions".

Comments?  Rebuttals?


/kevin