[X-Newbies] Top posing in mail?

[Tony Johansen]

Eliminating everything extraneous such as luxuries like both text and html
makes me neither a top, nor bottom poster in this case. So as the first
fence-sitter poster in this debate can I say that the biggest problem in the
mac world is the geeky culture that turns molehills like this into the
longest thread in creation.

Etiquette of all types applied to social situations is a facilitator of
communication and formalises human activity best when it adapts to changing
times and culture. So called Netiquette was developed at a time when the
geeks ruled and the tech world seemed to be a club-like alternative
universe.

I have a mac because as an artist I appreciate the elegance of the machine.
I do not like the limitations that sometimes imposes which includes files
that wont open because they are in a windows format, and usually not
important enough to go to the trouble and expense involved in making them
work on my machine. All because of different standards.

In an approximately 95%/5% universe the reality is that it is very difficult
for the smaller player to ignore the standards of the bigger guy. And when
accommodation is necessary the little guy changes or gets even smaller.

Quality is not the issue in the end. Remember video standards? Beta was
actually better than VHS, but the more important thing was that everyone
used the same standard, otherwise not all movies were available to everyone.

Personally I prefer top posting, but I go with the normal standard of
replying to mail (which is top posting) as a matter of course, in keeping
with the de-facto current etiquette in the wider world. I suspect that the
issue of an Apple program following that course (which was the original
starting point of this thread) is purely recognition from Apple marketing
that to reverse the slide to oblivion, means appealing to PC users by making
products more 'normal'.

IF it is important for contextual reasons to bottom post in certain
'refined' circumstances, then that information should be provided to the new
users when they subscribe. Absence of such guidelines implies a certain
un-importance placed on the issue.

Be warned, however, organisations that have special languages, hand-shakes,
and rituals generally appeal only to small groups, and the special languages
tend to reinforce isolationism from the larger group.

I would hope that Steve Jobs necessary move towards wider markets brings in
more and more people who frankly don't care less about niceties, and just
want to get on with working WITH the wider world, even if that means a
potentially lesser, but near-universal standard.

Tony Johansen,
Special Envoy, Transmanian and Outer Bata-eyelidstan Cultural Exchange
Association.