[mythtv-users] Who is VCRAddict - and who appointed him sheriff of Mythville?

[diane mittnik]

> Top posting isn't really inferior or immoral, although some people
> try to frame the isssue that way.

If you set up a list that was going to include 5% of users who are
legally blind (can see, but with the help of screen readers, screen
magnifiers, or worst case (that doesn't apply to this example) totally
blind, would you require captchas as part of a newfangled method of
posting to the list to help control  spam on the mail server's end, or
supply the solution without sound-enabled captchas (as others are sure
to bring up), which would further hamper 1% of this hypothetical list
that are both blind and deaf?

I believe this is a better example than what some others later in the
replies are using as examples, once you see my further explanation
below...

> What it really is, is an issue of custom.

No.  It's an issue of a group of individuals of whom the vast majority
are highly technologically proficient in GNU/Linux and probably
Microsoft/Windows as well in many cases, who normally have a
background (depending on age/experience to a degree) in using Unix or
GNU/Linux especially in a University setting.  Increasing at a faster
rate the further you go back in time, it's likely that many on the
list have used an email reader that is a text mail reader (mutt, pine
come to mind), instead of (or more likely in addition to), a gui mail
reader like thunderbird, mozilla mail, MS Outlook or whatever MS email
client is, or receiving and sending email from a web browser (imap).

Don't know if mutt and/or pine deals any better with top posting than
they used to (I haven't used either in the last ten years), but of
those who attended a college or university more than ten years ago and
perhaps later than that, many either were granted shell access or at
least mail access on school servers, or they failed to take advantage
of this access.  If not a school experience, many still experienced
shell access and text mail readers by logging in at work or while at
home to work if working in a field that used Unix/Linux servers, or
they may have shell/mail access to a mail server through installfests
(and the friendships that developed from there), or if they needed to
run a server and their isp blocked ports, they may have co-located a
server at a hosting facility or used a virtual or dedicated server
there and logged in to a shell via ssh and decided to check mail while
performing routine maintenance or monitoring tasks. And as the advice
was back then, for security purposes, don't run X on a server...which
precludes X-forwarding kmail/thunderbird/mozilla mail/whatever, and
saves time and attention from starting up a separate mail app locally,
downloading and then reading mail when you are already logged in to a
shell...

Have you checked system logs?  They bottom post don't they?  Checked
your X logs?  Bottom post, don't they?  Checked user or root's mail
for error messages?  Isn't root's mail bottom posted?

Try reading a thread with twenty replies that have some top posting
and a couple of bottom posts.  Or one that has a top post answer, but
one of the replies also posts a couple of lines answer to a question
eleven paragraphs down, just below or above that paragraph.

Taking a look at all the replies to this thread regarding top/bottom
posting, I find it shocking that no one brought up text mail readers
(mutt/pine) prior to my post.  Perhaps it's a generational thing with
too many young'uns living on iphones, blackberries and text messaging.
 If so, that's too bad.  It's moving even technically proficient
computing folk away from the technical side of where computing is
going.  Not necessarily text mail readers, but shell accounts and the
exploration and learning/knowledge that develops with that shell
access. Universities outsourcing email to Google/MS isn't going to
help this situation either.

And speaking of Google, as another poster mentioned about html email,
I'm guessing that because Google is Linux centered and their users
highly technical, that's why they haven't defaulted to html email
either, nor sending mail in both text and html as someone else
mentioned about thunderbird.

> But since so many people seem to like Top posting it strikes me
> the convention is wrong or at least unfounded.

No, it's because of a monopoly of the desktop, and that monopoly's
default way of handling email, and them knowing that over 90% of users
in many, many areas (licensing, permitting, viewing habits, computer
hardware modification, application menu arrangement, shortcut keys,
many, many more) will accept the default and will not change a thing.

> Perhaps there's a vocal minority of Bottom Posting Pursuits keep us
> Top Posters down

No, it's a small percentage (maybe a couple percent at most looking at
Linux on the desktop and Mac users using the command line percentages)
of users who react the same way that visually impaired users recently
reacted to the possibility of their government employer switching from
Microsoft Office with it's usability tools for disabled individuals,
to OpenOffice.org which has little or no support for visually impaired
users.  Actually, I think that's the best analogy so far.


> (and the majority who couldn't care less).

That's the majority used to the monopoly software, the vast majority
who don't have a clue about the existence of other users who
sometimes, often, or always read their email using a text reader.
Checking my mail client, I see over 20,000 posts/replies just from
2007/2008 just from the mythtv-user list.  Using maildir as the file
format, that's 20,000+ files, just for this one list.  Add Suse's or
Red Hat's or Debian's user mailing list, that's another 20,000+ files.
Just counted the number of lists I'm subscribed to and it's over 60.
That's a little over three hundred thousand maildir files. One way I
handled this in the past (and how MS is handling their archiving of
FOSS lists, among others who archive lists locally for reference or
spying or whatever their motives) is to locate all the files on either
a mail server or a mail client that is accessible to an authorized
group or the entire organization, locate the desktop/server somewhere
central to the network where it can be backed up easily, and then have
everyone log in to search mail or get the latest mail. While it's easy
to Google the archives of MythTV, having the list archives of other
lists locally has saved many a neck in the past, especially when the
outside network was down.  And working with and searching mail on a
locally located desktop or server allows easier cl searching (with all
the fun regex tools) and viewing compared to opening a browser, using
google, using a mouse...(you young'uns think I'm going senile right
'bout now...)

> There's even a standard for how to connect your horse to your carriage...

> But those dang whippersnappers are now using those fancy automobiles -
> without the approval of the carriage standards group!

Remember the day when we had to walk six miles to school even if the
snow was higher than a rooster's beard and the wind and snow were
blowing faster than a preacher reads the vows at a shotgun wedding...

Remember the day when we had to use a sextant instead of this
newfangled satellite thingie...


> I'm quite amused by this.  Funny anecdote:  I was taught, believe
> it or not, to walk on the right side of the hallway in high school.
> There were so many students having to get to class within 3 minutes
> via narrow hallways, that it actually made sense.

Even funnier: Going back to grade school all the way through college,
 starting in grade school, everyone else walked on the right side of
the hall, so without being taught, I did what everyone else did from
day one.  Even move importantly, in grade school, we used the stairs
in those old schools the same way, single line, right side going up,
right side (facing the opposite way) going down (we used the same
single staircase in each stairway).  In junior high, it was separate
staircases in the same stairway, right side going up, right side
(facing door) going down.  In college, we had elevators in multi-story
buildings, and sometimes just seven minutes to get from one class to
the next, depending on schedule.  It was the right side of the
elevator door to get in the elevator, right side of the door to get
out of the elevator (facing opposite way).  And it's the same on NYC
subways, right side of each door from platform to car, right side
(facing opposite) from car to platform.

Why others attempt to use the wrong side instead of the right side,
I'll never understand.  The collective must be followed...


> Fast forward to today and I still don't understand why some
> people insist on walking on the left side of a hallway,
> sidewalk, or other pathway.

The US has far more foreign nationals in it today than it did way back
when Star Trek communicators were just a fantasy.

> At least here in the US, we all
> drive on the right side of the road, so it would seem natural
> to use the right hand side of the hallway.

We drive on the right side, they drive on the wrong side...

> I guess old habits die hard.  :-)

I believe you got that bass-ackwards.  The old habit (bulleting
boards, usenet, logging on to a mail server to check/send mail, text
mail readers) "died out" because of a convicted monopolist's tactics
and sop.

> In a business setting, top posting is much more efficient.

Bull.

> Most of the time, a conversation between a group of people usually starts out
with the To: and CC: lists completely defined.  Adding people to the
conversation after the fact is rare enough

Bull.

that only a relative few would need to actually read the entire message.