On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 at 23:09 -0400, Angelo DePalma scribbled:
-Sorry this post is not about Larry Parr's toenails, Sam Sloan's
-inability to beat an 1800 player with the Damiano, or Bill Goich-
-berg's single-handed destruction of the American way of life.

Gee, if it isn't about one of those topics, the bozos^H^H^H^H^H
er, uh, ever-so-polite and intelligent posters on this base are
going to have a hard time dealing with it, wouldn't you think?!?
grin

-It's about something of far greater importance -- my integrity as
-a usenet poster.

I've been writing chess humor for 37 years. I can't top that
line, so I'm gonna leave it alone. I know when I'm beat. But all
seriousness aside (as the late Steve Allen used to say), the phrase
"asbestos suit" existed in the online community (a.k.a. Modemland)
long before access to the Usenet became widespread roughly 10 to 15
years ago. When you post on the Usenet you leave the sane world
behind, as well as any claims to integrity. Flaming's the name of
the game. As Harry Truman said, if you can't stand the heat, get
out of the kitchen!!

-What do you guys think of top-posting,

Fifteen years ago I used to have a rule of thumb as a reader
that the poster should have original text on, and make his first
point by the bottom of, the first screen. If not, I would just hit
'n' to go to the next posting. (That was before mice and besides,
it takes less effort than clicking a mouse.) Of course, that's hor-
ribly old-fashioned by today's standards. Nobody cares about "band-
width" anymore; if a poster "quotes" 200 lines and then writes "I
agree" at the end, nobody even bothers to flame it. Who cares about
netiquette or good posting habits?! That's sooooo 20th Century!
This is Modern Cyberspace! It's not your grandfather's Usenet any-
more! grin

-Am I wrong to assume everyone who reads my posts only needs to see
-relevant stuff that's gone before?

A reasonable person would say that it doesn't matter whether the
poster tops or bottoms, as long as the poster deletes extraneous ver-
biage and "quotes" only those parts of the original post needed to
allow the reply to make sense. (Another old-fashioned netiquette
idea.)

-Am I wrong to assume everyone | Hey, how about this idea?!
-who reads my posts only needs to | SIDE posting!!! (I'll bet
-see relevant stuff that's gone | this gets messed up on most
-before? | people's screens! ha-ha!
--
----------------------------------------------
david moeser -- erasmus39 on yahoo
Censornati, Ohio - USA
----------------------------------------------
* Big Browser Is Watching You! *

(Headers munged to foil spammers; real info in taglines)