[X-Newbies] Top posing in mail?

[Steven Rogers]

On May 20, 2005, at 11:00 PM, Tony Johansen wrote:

> 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.

It has nothing whatever to do with the Mac culture. This discussion  
has been going on since there was an internet, and has been debated  
about mostly by people who are not Mac users.

> 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.

There are two problems with this. First, top-posting is a convention,  
not a standard. Your mail does not become incompatible if you do not  
follow the convention - just annoying. Nobody has to top-post or  
bottom-post to become "compatible". Secondarily, the idea that the  
"smaller" guy cannot ignore the standards of the "bigger" guy is just  
false. It happens all the time.

> 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.

This has been repeated until most people think its true, but it is  
just completely wrong. First, Beta was not "better" than VHS in any  
way that the user actually cares about, which is a critical point. To  
say that beta was actually better, but people just didn't understand  
why is to miss the whole point of what "better" is. Further, it was  
not important that everyone use the same standard. Sony wanted to  
charge more for Beta, which was identical to VHS to everyone but  
video geeks, and average consumers did not want to pay extra. Beta is  
widely used in the broadcast world, just not in the consumer market.  
We now have DVDs, VHS tapes, 8mm video, and miniDV in the consumer  
marketplace, and there is no pressure for everyone to adopt the same  
standard. The idea that consumers or the marketplace can support only  
one standard is false, and the world is full of counter-examples (the  
Mac, for example) - but people keep repeating this like its a law of  
nature.

> 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.

For what its worth, I hope the lowest common denominator doesn't rule.

SR