"Lloyd" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 21:35:37 GMT, Honus put on his Net Nanny hat and wrote
a 117 line post which finally wound up with:

The weird thing is that I've been reading Lloyd's post for some time
now,
and just to be sure my memory was accurate I googled to be sure...and
he's
never been a top poster. Strange.

There are many Lloyds on here. In fact, most of us are Lloyd. I'm
the top posting Lloyd - the one who is much more of a Usenet Master
than the other Lloyds.

I see. And you all use the same mmmm email address? I'll let
the "The only thing you're a master of" joke go by. It's too easy for a man
of my talents.

I usually post with an X-No-Archive header,
which means that Google doesn't archive most of my posts.

You won't let google archive your posts? What exactly are you afraid of,
Lloyd? It's been my experience that the only people that don't allow
archiving are people that regularly get their teeth bent when they try to
debate their betters. What's your excuse?

I will now return to top posting, because it is the new way of doing
things.

That's a good reason? Because it's new? Not because it's better, or more
efficient, or easier, but because it's "new"? It's not "new". It's been
being done by lazy, inconsiderate posters for years. And they've been
getting the same treatment for years, because your style of posting is
clearly inferior. No changes to Usenet have changed that one simple fact,
nor can they.

Those ancient old texts may have been appropriate prior to
1995, before commerical interests took over the Internet, but now they
are your Daddy's FAQs; not ours. NSF Net is no more, and now the
general public (users of AOL and UUNet for example) decides what is or
is not acceptable on the net.

You're correct that the netizens decide what's acceptable and what's not,
and naturally some things will change. I don't believe that top posting will
be one of those things. You're still very much in the minority. I also sense
that you're a newbie. Welcome to Usenet.

Try to get along.

The largest Usenet servers are owned by large corporations now, and
acceptable Usenet behavior is quite naturally determined by those
corporate players;

Gee...I thought you just said that the general public decides? It doesn't
matter one bit who owns the servers; it's the people that decide. Earthlink
doesn't tell me how to post; common courtesy, common sense and my fellow
netizens do.

not the old time players who have been swept away
but somehow don't know it yet.

Since we're all still here, and since even a perfunctory search of the web
shows that you're very much in the minority, well...I just don't know what
to tell you, Lloyd.


The major players are us, and we will
top post when appropriate.

Oh, so now it's "when appropriate". I see. When -I- pedal backwards, it
usually activate the brakes.

And who is "us"? Before you answer, bear in mind that you don't know
anything about me...I might be one of you, depending on your criteria.

Of course, you could have learned -some- things about me by searching
google. I'm not afraid to have my posts archived.

We will also post in more modern formats
such as the utf-8 character set, html, and rich text format, because
we aren't locked into the past.

Like I said, change is to be expected. Not too many people that I know are
paying for bandwidth like they used to, so posting in html or posting
binaries to non-ninary groups isn't -quite- as frowned on as it used to be.
But top posting is still wrong for all of the reasons which I previously
cited and referenced. You know...the ones that you ignored, just as I
predicted you would? You STILL haven't given a good reason for doing it,
whereas I layed out my argument, which of course you snipped without
addressing. If you've got no game, why are you trying to play? Do yourself a
favor, and stay off of your high school debating team. You'll only bring
shame down upon yourself and your school, Lloyd.

It's called progress. Join us if you dare.

In your case, it's called being willfully stubborn in the face of lucid
arguments and flawless reasoning that disagree with your unsupported and
unsupportable position on the issue. Progress has to do with improvements,
not following trends. I'm still waiting to see an explanation of the former
from you.

Looks to me like newbie has nothing to do with how long you have been here.


"Lloyd" wrote in message
...
You think I'm a newbie?

Oh, let's see: I've been posting to what became Usenet since around
1981. Google (dejanews back then) first started archiving during that
same year. I used to dial up Carnegie-Mellon University's front end
machines in Pittsburgh, switch to a PDP-20 or a PDP-10 and begin
reading and posting with a Lear-Siegler ADM-42 terminal while in
not-logged-in mode.

Yep, I'm a newbie all right.

CMU was one of the main hubs of the original ARPA net, as administered
by BBN under contract to DARPA. The TCP/IP protocol was still under
development, and it didn't get deployed until around '82 or '83 as I
recall.

Yep, I'm a newbie all right. I was on the net before TCP/IP was deployed.

As Usenet developed, a pecking order developed along with it. Folks
at the top of the pecking order would decree "ex cathedra" how to
properly do certain things. The procedures were enshrined in FAQs and
soon became Usenet and Internet dogma.

You questioned an accepted FAQ at the risk of being known as a "lamer"
or a "luser," and a self-appointed set of gurus would often attempt to
instruct you in the ways of the current religion without ever pausing
to realize that the group-think had become dogma over time.

You can even see it in operation today.

For example, the old Usenet dogma ignores the massive, cheap disk
storage which is available to everyone and attempts to prevent people
from posting either image files or html. In spite of high speed
internet access and large disk capacities, the old guard still behaves
as if they're protecting the disk storage of a VAX-11/785 with a 400
megabyte disk pack as accessed by users using 300 bps modems.

Pathetic.

Similarly, certain styles of ASCII posting are politically correct
with the old timers, such as bottom posting. Have you ever looked at
the mess that results after three or four people have attempted to
quote previous posters?

The posts are usually illegible, because most of the bottom posters
don't bother to trim their quotes, and the posts become massively
convoluted and difficult to read. Line wrap errors, coupled with
repeated use of the "" quoting character, turn them into a mess. Run
on up to alt.flame if you want to see how unreadable bottom posting
can become.

And that's the norm for the great majority of bottom posts. I skip
them regularly, rather than trying to decipher them.

If you can't make your points in a top post, you probably haven't
developed the language skills necessary to make your points anyway.
Bottom posting is way overrated and is really a crutch. It should be
avoided.

On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 00:07:57 GMT, Honus wrote a 104 line post
which eventually got around to saying:

You're correct that the netizens decide what's acceptable and what's not,
and naturally some things will change. I don't believe that top posting
will
be one of those things. You're still very much in the minority. I also
sense
that you're a newbie. Welcome to Usenet.

Try to get along.

"Lloyd" wrote in message
...
You think I'm a newbie?

Is that the only point you're going to address? Anyway, it looks like I was
wrong about suspecting a newbie. You sure talk the talk, though.

snip

For example, the old Usenet dogma ignores the massive, cheap disk
storage which is available to everyone and attempts to prevent people
from posting either image files or html. In spite of high speed
internet access and large disk capacities, the old guard still behaves
as if they're protecting the disk storage of a VAX-11/785 with a 400
megabyte disk pack as accessed by users using 300 bps modems.

Pathetic.

Ummm...I seem to recall addressing those particular examples myself.

Similarly, certain styles of ASCII posting are politically correct
with the old timers, such as bottom posting. Have you ever looked at
the mess that results after three or four people have attempted to
quote previous posters?

The posts are usually illegible, because most of the bottom posters
don't bother to trim their quotes, and the posts become massively
convoluted and difficult to read. Line wrap errors, coupled with
repeated use of the "" quoting character, turn them into a mess. Run
on up to alt.flame if you want to see how unreadable bottom posting
can become.

And that's the norm for the great majority of bottom posts. I skip
them regularly, rather than trying to decipher them.

It's the norm because people don't adhere to a well accepted standard. If
people did, then we wouldn't be having this discussion. Hint, hint.

If you can't make your points in a top post, you probably haven't
developed the language skills necessary to make your points anyway.
Bottom posting is way overrated and is really a crutch. It should be
avoided.

I certainly didn't advocate bottom posting, and anybody who's been on Usenet
for a week can see just how messy posts can get when people don't snip
properly. That's a different subject entirely, even though you're trying to
claim that top posting will alleviate the problem. Surely that isn't your
reason for top posting? (I'm still waiting for that, by the way.) I also
don't agree with that bit about making your points in a top post. Sure, it's
do-able. That doesn't make it the best way. Interpersing comments is just
the best way to go for all of the reasons I've cited, against all of the
reasons that you haven't. You mileage obviously varies. But as I said
before, you're very much in the minority.

On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 00:07:57 GMT, Honus wrote a 104 line post
which eventually got around to saying:

See, that attribution should be at the top of the post, not in the middle of
it. You're just being obstinant.

You're correct that the netizens decide what's acceptable and what's
not,
and naturally some things will change. I don't believe that top posting
will
be one of those things. You're still very much in the minority. I also
sense
that you're a newbie. Welcome to Usenet.

Try to get along.

And don't think I didn't notice how many of my points you ignored by
snipping. You know...like why don't you allow your posts to be archived.
By the way...my posting history goes way back to dejanews as well. That can
be verified, as my posts are archived.

In article ,
whoever whoever@wherever wrote:

You're still crossposting as well as bottom feeding!
Your signature should be

Telamon wrote:

In article ,
whoever whoever@wherever wrote:


Why are you still cross posting you bottom posting moron. I have no
interest in you becoming a "ham."

Telamon wrote:


In article ,
whoever whoever@wherever wrote:



Why are you still cross posting this to rec.radio.amateur.misc you
stupid bottom posting loser, or is that bottom feeder? ESAD ps just
remember who started the name calling and have fun listening you
wantabe ham!


Why are you still cross posting you top posting moron. I have no
interest in becoming a "ham."



Well, you are making more sense but that's just because you copied my
words. Still posting at the top though clueless one.

Your signature should be ever.


Nothing changes the fact that you are a clueless moron and a stinking
top poster.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California

In article ,
whoever whoever@wherever wrote:

And you're still cross posting, which was your main complaint!
Nothing changes the fact that you are a clueless moron and a stinking
bottom feeder. I should post at the bottom so you could read all the
stupid crap again, you seem to get off on that!

Yeah, but it doesn't change the fact that you are a clueless moron and a
stinking top poster.

What I made was a request, which was not honored but a stupid moron such
as yourself could not make that distinction.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California