Re: The charter for this newsgroup

On Wed, 04 Jan 2006 05:03:58 -0800, bbulsara23 wrote:

>
> So here's a revised question:.
>
> Q. Should top, bottom, or interleaved posting to cdos be the posters
> preference or the consensus preference of people that read this
> newsgroup?

My personal preference is simple - interleaved posting with trimming (which is almost universally bottom posting within a section). I state in my .sig that my preference is NO top posting and enforce it in my way, by totally ignoring any top-posted follow-ups, even when the content is reasonable.

(BTW - I terribly dislike bottom posting without trimming as well. Waste of electrons!)   

Funny thing is, when I go to groups.google.com and look at anything in comp.database.oracle.server, I see
- the posts are all sorted in bottom-post order; and - quoted material is trimmed as much as possible; I wonder why that is?

(I also note that all software change control reads from the top down, putting the older information in place first before editing with the next layer. Seems like a similar concept.)

As for setting which to use in the charter - there are far more important things to put into the charter. (Personally, I'd like to see cdo.marketplace changed to something like cdo.announce, making it more general than just a 'commercial' marketplace, and then adjust the charters for these to reflect that change.)  

Simply rewriting the charter and posting it somewhere is not gonna work, because some self-styled lawyer will point out that it's not official. (Been there, done that!) The way to do it is to put up a call for change, moderated by a third party that is connected with the official newsgroup charter process. This is a variation of 'creating a newsgroup' as found in the document at
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/creating-newsgroups/part1/

IN terms of poster's preference or member's preference ... go to any small town or village [say, in the mid-west] and ask directions. Ask the wrong way, and the locals (you know, the ones with the answer) will

1. look at you askance;
2. refuse to answer;
3. give a snarly, perhaps wrong, answer; or
4. make you the only reason for the answer is to get you on your way.

This is just like any other community hall - cdo.* is just like the veranda at the local general store, and we are all sitting in our chairs contemplatin' "things". So why do you expect the locals here to respond any differently than any other small community? After all, we elected to stay here and we've adjusted to each other's personality. Few long timers comment about Sybrand's brusqueness, my excess verbosity, Mladen's cynicism or Daniel's abruptness (to name a few foibles). It's mainly those who haven't taken the time to look at the community and the related personalities that take offense, or bother to comment.

Bottom line - if one plans to move in here for the long term, one can alter the community from within, leading by new behaviour.

Finally I note that, in spite of some peoples' and software companies' belief (probably derived from the newsgroup header and mail headers being similar and can be handled by the same software) these are two different media.

Mail is personal, can be and possibly should be configured for personal use. Mail tends to be a stream of correspondence which has current meaning and content therefore tends to be fresh. Top posting is acceptable, and possibly preferred, because it is a dialog. Reference to previous discussion points are supplementary and therefore can be further 'down' as they are rarely used.

Newsgroup interaction is, on the other hand, a group interaction. It can, and does, have a number of diversions and tangent points. In order to ensure continuity on any tangent, it is therefore very important to provide the ties - as close as possible - between the original point of tangent and the actual tangent itself.

-- 
Hans Forbrich                           
Canada-wide Oracle training and consulting
mailto: Fuzzy.GreyBeard_at_gmail.com   
*** Top posting [replies] guarantees I won't respond. ***