Re: [Rails] Beating the Top-Posting Dead Horse

> On Nov 4, 2011, at 12:32 PM, Dave Aronson wrote:>> <snip nice rant>

*applauds*

Some people just don't get the idea that the effort they put into
their postings is a direct representation of the effort that they're
exerting in communicating a courteous message; one that demonstrates
they want to help people understand their situation.

On 4 November 2011 20:24, Craig White <craig.white@ttiltd.com> wrote:
> I personally don't like top postings and will frequently re-arrange an e-mail if I am going to respond

Yes... that's a good habit, and sometimes people pick up on the
leadership and reply accordingly. I think it's *always* worth replying
with an correctly composed response.

>but seriously, there is more bandwidth wasted on this topic than the problem actually creates.

I disagree. If it takes each person who reads a badly composed message
5-10 seconds extra to scroll through to grok it (or a little longer to
look through previous, possibly deleted posts to get context of an
unquoted reply), that doesn't seem like a big problem; and certainly
not one worth spending a minute or two writing a "proper" message in
the first place.
But...
...there may be several thousand people reading the bad message, and
all their time combined has just outweighed by 100 times the couple of
extra minutes of composure.

It's a *big* problem - one which just *seems* insignificant.

Also, it's just plain rude - to think that saving oneself a couple of
minutes is more important that the hours of time just stolen from
people all around the world.

> If you don't like the top posting - don't respond.

Well now, you might have notice that there are very few responders on
this list nowadays; many people decide *not* to post, for various
reasons. One of my reasons for junking most messages that appear is
that I certainly don't appreciate assisting people who seem to have no
interest in learning from that assistance, and taking it onboard to
assist others.

There are one or two people left who regularly bang their heads
against the wall of dreadful (in many ways) posts, with patience I
admire enormously from behind my keyboard. When those few finally give
up exasperated, the Rails "community" will be even more arid. Advising
them to "don't respond" is probably not in the best long term interest
of Rails. Maybe, instead, join the chorus of people who ask "please
don't top post" to add weight to this side :-)

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