[Vision2020] Forum Etiquette Was: Don't you get it? EVERYONE'S rights are in peril!

Chasuk chasuk at gmail.com
Sat Nov 8 12:20:53 PST 2008


On Sat, Nov 8, 2008 at 11:32, Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Don't conversations generally hop from topic to topic when you're
> conversing with people?  If you want to force everyone to stay on topic,
> go write a blog and invite comments.

Online etiquette (netiquette) has evolved differently, so I agree and
disagree.  Properly, when a topic changes, it should be indicated in
the "Subject" header.  Do I do this?  Sometimes.  Not as often as I
should.

See my example in the "Subject" of this message.

"Bottom-posting" used to be the correct form, and I wish it still was.
 It only changed with the influx of neophytes and Outlook Express.
>From the jargon file:

http://catb.org/jargon/html/B/bottom-post.html

"bottom-post: v.

    In a news or mail reply, to put the response to a news or email
message after the quoted content from the parent message. This is
correct form, and until around 2000 was so universal on the Internet
that neither the term 'bottom-post' nor its antonym top-post existed."

And:

"... best practice is actually to excerpt only the relevant portions
of the parent message, then intersperse the poster's response in such
a way that each section of response appears directly after the excerpt
it applies to. This reduces message bulk, keeps thread content in a
logical order, and facilitates reading."

I follow the conventions in the paragraph above quite scrupulously,
but then I am an "old-timer," having posted my first messages in an
online forum 1985ish.

Chas



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