Because we're not playing Jeopardy.
Why is top-posting wrong?
Put up top for the top posters who are too lazy to do it right.
Hal Vaughan wrote:
> It is not a strawman argument.
It is.
> My point is that you have put yourself in a position to say, "This is
> right," you are making an absolute moral judgement for all people and all
> time.
Top posting vs. bottom posting vs. interspersing is not a moral judgement.
It is a *technical discussion* much in the same way that there is a right and
wrong way to write English. For example there are rules on where punctuation
is placed when using quotation marks.
"I say," said Fred, "that's a giant tuber!" -- Correct
"I say", said Fred, "that's a giant tuber"! -- Incorrect
One can argue that the latter case has just as much case going for it
except for when some people a loooong time ago formed some "inside the quotes"
clique and throwing around their moral judgements on those who were "outside
the quotes".
But there are reasons why the comma and excelmation point are inside the
quotes just as there are reasons why the final period in the above paragraph
is outside the quotes, not inside. Sure, people could write it the second way
but much past the second grade and they were hopefully flunked out for their
atrocious grammer.
Same goes for top posting being wrong, bottom posting being wrong and why
interspersing is correct. No doubt those reasons have been covered at length
here. Point is that since it is a matter of technical detail, not moral nor
subjective as all points in favor of interspersing and against top/bottom
posting are *objective within the context of the forum under discussion*
anyone who does adhere to them after being properly educated is sloppy or
lazy. Too bad we can't flunk them out of whatever forum we encounter them
because it's well past the 2nd grade and they should know that when informed
of proper formatting it is in there best interest to adhere to it.
> Just like those who said their music was right and others were wrong,
Musical tastes are subjective although one could make some pretty
convincing arguments on the relative merits of Mozart (the mathematical
structure of his music) vs. the lack of merits of pretty much the entire
gansta rap genre (rhyming poetry which is 99% about the author and his mostly
fictional deeds and virlity). ;)
> those who say their religion is the one true one and others are wrong.
Of course this is subjective since by the definition of religion there are
absolutely no objective points to debate.
> You are assuming, in most of what you write, that your view is absolutely
> right.
Well, if he's talking about interspersing, he is. It is right based on
objective points on how people in the discussed forum (IE, Debian-User which
is an English list) read text. Boils down to this. We don't SPEAK
conversations backwards. We don't READ conversations backwards. Why the hell
would we WRITE them backwards!? It is counter to how we naturally converse.
Facts, my boy. Objective facts.
> In other words, you are either incapable of, or refuse to understand that
> your view, as for all of us, is relative and subjective.
Bzt. Nice try, no cigar. I have yet to see one blasted reason why top
posting is technically valid outside of having to address the technical
screw-ups of the authors of some piece of software. NONE. I don't say that
because of some namby-pampy "I don't accept your subjective view". I say it
because they can be shot down.
> You, and I, are not in a position to make the absolute objective judgement
> about what is right and what isn't.
Yes, we are when the matter at hand is objective. Like it or not matters
of formatting *ARE* objective. They can be debated on what is better or worse
based on the situation under which that formatting is to operate. That is why
there are correct and incorrect ways to format English. Go ahead, test the
theory, write something improperly formatted and submit it for publication and
see how far you get. Better yet, submit it to a second grade teacher and see
how much red comes back.
> My point is that you, and most arguing against top posting are assuming you
> have an absolute moral high ground, when there is really no proof you do.
Of course not. It's not a moral discussion, it's a technical one. You
want a moral discussion you're in the wrong forum and under the wrong topic.
Maybe we should have a bot emailing everyone who top-posts Tom
Christiansen's excellent essay on the topic?
--
Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your
PGP Key: 8B6E99C5 | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
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