documentation for ruby?

[James Britt]

This point I agree with, because the advocacy part comes across as a
little selfish.

I still evangelize it, though, as subtly as I can

I've tried that, got poor results, and now take a simple approach: I
try to do as little work as possible, and if someone posts a message I
find hard to read or follow, I will stop reading and move on.

If people top-post and still get the results they are seeking (help,
suggestions, whatever), I guess they have found a working strategy, so
why should they stop.

But if you are going to post anything at all, consider you audience and
make things easy for the reader.

It's sort of like how you should write code; easy of reading trumps ease
of writing.

 

[Mark Wilden]

My recollection is top-posting was actively discouraged, but overall
relatively rare until the advent of AOL, Netscape, and
SLIP/PPP connections which opened the floodgates, allowing
residential users onto the Internet by the millions. . . .

Actually, my experience was somewhat the opposite. I started on GEnie,
where quoting was rare. Then I came to Usenet and absolutely could not
believe the amount of quoting that went on. It was clearly without any
thought or reason - people just quoted the entire thread in every
single message. You still see that, in this very group.

That's what really gripes me - the fact that people quote the entire
universe, but it doesn't matter as long as they put the new stuff at
the bottom, forcing you have to scroll down to read it. What sense is
there in that?

If the self-appointed netiquette police paid as much attention to
excessive quoting as they do to top and bottom posting, the whole
issue would be moot, in my eyes.

///ark

 

[Mark Wilden]

I'll mention one more thing, too, about the topic -- and someone may
have beat me to it -- is that my eyes work quite a bit faster than my
fingers do (recognizing paragraphs that I've seen before with a single
glance, for example), so repetition of previous statements doesn't
really bother me. It is more important to me with how it's laid out,
so I can quickly figure out how deep in the thread I am, and who is
responding to who.

The way I read email is with the mouse. I'll click on each subject
line in the list, and then usually click delete very soon after.
Bottom-quoting means I often have to add another step - to scroll down
to read the actual message. I don't understand why many people prefer
that, but they clearly do.

///ark

 

[Mark Wilden]

At the moment, I have more attention diverted to email, since I am
waiting for correspondence. There are weeks, though, where email (and
IM, or any form of communication) is on the back burner, getting
minimal
attention, as it otherwise would distract me. I suspect, I'm not the
only one who works that way.

I participate in a number of groups. If I don't keep up with them on a
daily basis, I'm going to fall behind pretty quickly. It's interesting
that you imply that bottom-posting is more attractive to those who
don't do groups as much as others, though. It makes sense.

Yes, you are implying that. 'It's all the same to me', to paraphrase
your stance.

You're kidding, right? I've been writing K upon K to say that I
don't care about this issue?

It's more than 'bare assertion', if those socialized with netiquette
take the 'top-posting isn't the best way to use written correspondence
on the web' ad here to this de facto standard. Of course, it is only
etiquette. However, those that don't follow etiquette are seen as rude
by those who don't follow the etiquette.

This is what I meant by "begging the question." You are using the
"standard" as evidence for why people should follow it. I don't agree
that it's the standard, so that evidence doesn't avail you.

Much like farting during dinner is, in the proverbial polite company,
frowned upon.

More passive voice.

| Also, it's very tricky to use the
| passive voice in this context. "Is considered rude" by whom?
That's one
| of the cruxes of this discussion.

Let's see: a good chunk of the Monks of the Scary Devil Monastery,
large parts of the Tom Clancy newsgroup (at least back when I was
active
there), and at least 2 people voicing their opinion in this very
thread.
this goes beyond 'bare assertion', but constitutes a trend.

Argument by anecdote.

Also, consider what I said earlier: that the anti-toppers (like you)
could simpler be more vocal than the more "tolerant" people (like me).
In other words, the majority does not necessarily support the loudest
viewpoint.

///ark

 

[Mark Wilden]

Maybe not in toto, but the bit about bottom posting is!

That's just an assertion, Francis, and frankly, it's formed the basis
of most of the arguments I've heard so far, all of which seem to boil
down to "you should do it because the people who say you should do say
you should do it." There's been precious little discussion of -why-,
other than to pretend that a newsgroup post is like a conversation.

The frowning upon follow-ups to your own post seems unjustified
too - addenda, corrections and retractions are entirely reasonable.

Agreed. Things have changed since 1995. Just because one person issued
a request for comment 13 years ago does not make careve it carve it in
stone.

///ark

 

[Mark Wilden]

But if you are going to post anything at all, consider you audience
and make things easy for the reader.

It's sort of like how you should write code; easy of reading trumps
ease of writing.

Thanks - that exactly expresses why (in some cases) I think top-
posting is better. I can't really think of any other basis on which to
argue (except for, "It's the standard!", of course).

///ark

 

[Marc Heiler]

You guys have somehow turned this away from the documentation-aspect,
huh? ;-)

 

[James Britt]

Thanks - that exactly expresses why (in some cases) I think top-posting
is better. I can't really think of any other basis on which to argue
(except for, "It's the standard!", of course).

Well, if you honestly think others will find it easier to read your
posts if you top-post, I don't know how to argue against it.


--
James Britt

www.rubyaz.org - Hacking in the Desert
www.risingtidesoftware.com - Wicked Cool Coding
www.jamesbritt.com - Playing with Better Toys

 

[Mark Wilden]

Well, if you honestly think others will find it easier to read your
posts if you top-post, I don't know how to argue against it.

I've already explained under which circumstances I believe that to be
true. I won't bore you by repeating it.

///ark

 

[Saji N. Hameed]

I agree fully with James - this style of replying seems more natural to
me..

saji

As a matter of personal preference, I prefer what seems to be called
"top posting".

While reading, if I've been following a thread, I like to see the new
info first. Replies are often brief and my old eyes sometimes have a
hard time finding where the quoting ends and the reply begins. If I
haven't been following the thread but get interested, I consider it my
responsibility to do the homework and get caught up on previous posts in
the thread.

While replying, I try to write whole sentences that are reasonably
self-explanatory. I usually include (at the bottom) the particular post
that I am replying to - snipped for brevity - just for context.

Point-by-point replies seem understandable to me with inter-posting.
But I still prefer complete sentences and self-explanatory replies.
Again, the quoting simply provides context and is only scanned, not
re-read.

Of course, now I've gone and contributed to a bigger problem - thread
hijacking!




j

James D. Maher
J.D. Maher & Associates, Inc.


-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Dober [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2008 10:07 AM
To: ruby-talk ML
Subject: Re: documentation for ruby?

Many others don't mind it either way, and if the quote trail is long, prefer
top posting. I don't know where the anti-toppers always seem to feel that
they can speak for everyone else.

I have never seen anybody plead for top posting, I have however very
often seen people asking kindly or humorously to bottom post.
If you prefer top posts that seems to be unlucky for you especially as
you did not ask either kindly nor humorously.
I however do not take any offense and I was not speaking for others
but transmitting information gathered over the years.
Please go through the trouble of looking at the common posting scheme
and what happens when somebody is top posting.

Please note also that nobody ever has been agressed when kindly asking
not to top post, as it just happened to me I am afraid that maybe I
was not kind enough, if this is the case all my apologies.

It however remains my intimate conviction that bottom posting is the
accepted standard on this list, but if all of those who prefer top
posting speak up, things might change.

Cheers
Robert

--
Saji N. Hameed

APEC Climate Center +82 51 668 7470
National Pension Corporation Busan Building 12F
Yeonsan 2-dong, Yeonje-gu, BUSAN 611705 (e-mail address removed)
KOREA

 

[Joel VanderWerf]

Well, if you honestly think others will find it easier to read your
posts if you top-post, I don't know how to argue against it.

Personally, I find it much easier to read posts that are written with
emacs, not vi.... (just trying to change the subject

 

[Mark Wilden]

Personally, I find it much easier to read posts that are written
with emacs, not vi.... (just trying to change the subject

You do _not_ want to get me started on that, trust me.

///ark

 

[Mikael Høilund]

You do _not_ want to get me started on that, trust me.

///ark

/* vim: set ts=3D2 sw=3D2 sts=3D2 ai */

I concur.

--=20
Name =3D "Mikael H=F8ilund"; Email =3D Name.gsub %r/\s/,%#=3D?,# ## =
visit
*a=3De=3D?=3D,!????,:??,?,,Email.downcase![eval(%["\\%o\\%o"]% ## =
http://
[?**2+?o,?\\*2])]=3D"o";Email.gsub! %%\%c%*3%a, %?%c? % ?@ ## hoilund
def The(s)%%\%s.%%s+%.org\n.end; :Go and print The Email ## dot org

 

[Dave Bass]

Dear oh dear oh dear! What a lot of fuss about nothing. ;-)

TMTOWTDI!

Live and let live.

 

[David Masover]

I'd be interested to hear exactly what has changed since 1995 that
invalidates the original reasoning.

I'm not sure how much has been said so far (archives don't seem to be keeping
up), but Gmail does a few things to make top-posting liveable, almost
preferred. It's about the only client I know that does this, though.

First, it's pretty thoroughly threaded. Even if my inbox is empty, when a new
mail comes in, it'll show it as a whole conversation.

Second, quotes are often hidden by default. They turn into a little JavaScript
link that says "Show quoted text" or something similar.

The result of those two is that it's usually more convenient to drill down in
the "conversation" -- meaning looking at actual, previous messages -- than to
look at a quote. This is because the actual messages will preserve formatting
(links, images, etc), and will also have the widgets associated with
metadata -- I can reply to that particular message, or push a "chat" button
to open an IM window with the person who wrote it, etc etc.

However, having the entire conversation in every message, even if they're all
hidden, has the nice side effect that I can be included in a conversation at
any point and have the entire history of it readily available. This is mostly
useful for business -- someone asks my boss about doing something, he replies
with comments and adds me to the CC list. I have the full context because of
that quote, with no additional effort from anyone.

In communities centered around gmail (Google Groups), and in places I don't
know of a convention, I'll usually top-post in cases like this -- where
there's not a huge amount of correlation between what I say and what's been
said, but it might be useful to have that history. It's also useful in
replies to individuals -- why should I read through everything I just wrote
in order to get to the actual message?

But in cases where it's appropriate (and in communities where it's requested),
I'll bottom-post and, occasionally, middle-post.

Of course, I probably lose any etiquette points for beating a dead horse...

 

[Robert Dober]

You do _not_ want to get me started on that, trust me.

So we finally found something to agree upon . Maybe we have all said
pretty much enough on the subject right now, just a suggestion .
Honestly I tried emacs & vi, there is a very simple reason why I
prefer vi, I am too stupid for emacs, no sarcasm intended at all.
Oh no I did not follow my own advice, I should be banned ....
Cheers
Robert