[mythtv-users] HDHomeRun for SDTV?

Matt Mossholder matt at mossholder.com
Thu Mar 22 22:12:47 UTC 2007


On Thu, 2007-03-22 at 11:23 -0400, R. G. Newbury wrote:

> Top postiong only makes sense when the question and the answer can fit 
> into a couple of lines.
> Your top-post referred to different parts of the lengthy 'question', 
> which one would HAVE to read (again) in order to understand the 
> response. Most of us can quickly scan something we have read before, to 
> re-orient ourselves to the content.
> 
> I  'middle posted' to post a quick response, under your response, with a 
> reference to the more complete section at the bottom. I had to 
> middle-post, because it would otherwise have been unclear to anyone that 
> there was anything extra...since you had top-posted. And there was only 
> the one...not multiple instances. In any event, sometimes mid-posting is 
> the easist way to respond to multiple questions.
> 
> My response would have made NO sense if it was on top of your response. 
> One would have to read ALL of mine before finding out WHY I had 
> rseponded as I had,....Unless I put your question/point in the beginning 
> of my reply... Why not just let you use your own words and then reply.
> 

Having to reorient your self to the message thread assumes that the only
message being read is a reply, and that the user isn't going to continue
reading the thread further. Once you've reoriented, the previous content
in each message of the thread is just extra baggage to be skipped over.

Most users now have threaded mail readers and read the mail in batches.
So, by top posting, you are making people repeatedly read over content
they have already -recently- read.  Add that the bad habit that many top
-and- bottom posters have of not trimming messages, and there is now a
lot of content to skip over in each message when bottom posting. 

Given my druthers (which I don't have on this list, and am not
campaigning for), I would much rather have people top post, simply
because most people don't trim. It's also harder to train the masses to
trim-and-top-post, when most mailers encourage top posting.

If people DO trim, then it makes no difference to me, top, bottom, or
middle. 

		--Matt





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