[Asterisk-Users] Re: Top posting - are we there yet?

[Jay Milk]

Apparently, no child was left behind... That's why we can find a lot of
them here.  

My point was, should you have missed it, that I personally don't care
what your posting preference is.  I know what mine is, but I'm willing
to work around yours and scroll more than I would think is necessary.  I
also don't care that you put YOUR money where your mouth is -- more
power to you for conviction.  

I DO care, however, when self-proclaimed federal government employees go
and put MY money where THEIR mouth is.  It's bad enough they're wasting
their tax-paid work time on petty discussions like this, but it's even
worse when they decide to spend other people's money based on their
personal preferences.  If one of my employees told me he spent $1 more
on something because he didn't like the ink color the lower quotes, that
would be brought up in a review.  If he spent $1,000 more, he might not
make it to the next review.

I'm a fairly reasonable person, and I have yet to see one good argument
(and quoting netiquette is not on argument, that's opinion) for
bottom-posting.  To me, it is terribly inefficient and wastes time,
especially when you hide your post between the original message and some
ludicrously elaborate signature.  Top-posting, to me, is more logical,
as it presents the answer in a prominent position.  And inline-posting
makes sense when you're responding to multiple questions or points in an
email...

That said, I don't mind digging through what I consider a compost-heap
of thoughts and find the answer I'm looking for.  And I won't blast
anyone for posting in that manner, because I understand that this is a
matter of preference.  I'm convinced that those who favor bottom-posting
do so because to them, the advantages of bottom-posting are just as
clear as the advantages of top-posting are to me and many others.
Neither "side" will convince the other, it's just like politics.

And just like in politics, disagreements aren't the problem; the
problems arise when you personalize the attack (as, to my shame, I've
done as well), marginalize your opponent, and worst yet, stop
communicating entirely because of one issue.  Top-Posters and
Bottom-Posters are equal contributors to this mailing list.  I found
many good answers in bottom-posted messages, and I know from personal
correspondence that I helped out a few folks with my top-posted messages
as well.

So, could we just agree to read around our idiosyncrasies and go back to
paying attention to the CONTENT of a message, not its FORMAT?
Discarding messages because they're in the wrong format is equal to
discriminating against another human being based on outward appearance;
be it skin-color, religion,  nationality, disability, or -- as often
found among engineers -- inability to match shoes and belt.  In short,
it's ridiculous and utterly inappropriate.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Steven Critchfield [mailto:critch at basesys.com] 
> Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2004 10:09 AM
> To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
> Subject: RE: [Asterisk-Users] Re: Top posting
> 
> 
> On Tue, 2004-11-16 at 09:53 -0600, Jay Milk wrote:
> > So, that's how my tax dollars are spent?  Outrageous, and certainly 
> > news-worthy.  Good luck fighting off CNN and the like when 
> this leaks 
> > out.
> 
> It is covered under the No Child Left Behind program under 
> continueing reinforcement of what should have been learned 
> before joining a network.