Message-ID: <3ACAA3E5.A686D18C@S0P1AdMeSsPiAgMn.com> From: Lorrin Moore X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.73 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.2.16 i586) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.databases.theory Subject: Re: Second Normal Form help. References: <9a0b6p$onv$1@bob.news.rcn.net> <9ac0ul$bbr$1@news.tue.nl> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 82 X-Trace: OBQgTm9BdXRoVXNlciByRUxPZUlUWS1SRUFEY1JTBjY0Lhc5My4UMy4SOSAGVHVlLCAwMyBBcHIg!MjAwMSAxORwzFDo1EyBQYlQ= X-Abuse-Info: Please forward ALL headers when reporting abuse. X-Complaints-To: abuse@telocity.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2001 19:32:55 PDT Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2001 21:32:37 -0700 This is obviously religious issue, of which I want no part. I am, however, posting from my linux box, in netscape, purely for your benefit. Lorrin (filter the spam to reply) James Taylor wrote: > > In article , > Lorrin Moore wrote: > > > > Unless you are responding point by point to a message, or the original > > quoted material fits within a few lines in a news reader, there is no > > reason to "top quote". > > I strongly disagree. What you do not seem to be taking into account, > is that it is not possible to read a thread from beginning to end in > one sitting. For instance, I will read as much of a group as I have > time for, then hit the "catch up" button. The next time I download > news may be two or three days later, and given that I read around > fifty groups, it is not possible to remember what was being said in > every thread anyway. When someone such as yourself fails to quote a > preceding snippet to put things in context I find it difficult to make > sense of what is being said. > > > Regular readers have already read the thread > > and don't need to re-read it to understand your contribution. > > Context is useful even to a regular reader. Obviously it is good > form to trim down what is being quoted to the minimum necessary to > give enough context, but you're not arguing for that because if you > were you wouldn't leave the entire quoted message at the bottom of > your posting. > > I have noticed that people who post in reverse order are nearly always > Outlook Express users and I have to assume that there is some user > interface flaw in Outlook which makes them do this. On the other hand > it may simply be that the typical Outlook user is also a Usenet > neophyte who does not understand the long standing culture that has > developed for the benefit of everyone. Such neophytes probably believe > that a one-off minor inconvenience for them when they write a message > outweighs the multiple inconveniences of everyone else who reads the > message. My suggestion is that such neophytes learn some humility and > attempt to fit in with the culture they are trying to be a part of. > > In article , > Lorrin Moore wrote: > > > > So I don't have to scroll all the way to the damned bottom just to > > read your inane response. > > This is another problem I've noticed. Some neophytes who do not > understand the reasons for the Usenet culture of interleaved quoting, > but who nevertheless know that they are supposed to reply *after* what > is said so that it reads forwards rather than backwards, seem to think > that it is enough to simply place their reply at the bottom without > trimming the quoted material at all. The result, as you quite rightly > complain, is that you are simply scrolling to the bottom of a large wad > of text in order to read the new material. What you need to understand > is that the quoted text should be trimmed down to the essential points > you are answering and the replies interleaved between. > > Another thing you should recognise is that Usenet is archived for > research purposes and if your postings do not make sense because they > are written in a backwards quoting order, this makes life difficult > for anyone wishing to mine Usenet for information. When you add to > this the bloat caused by unthinking regurgitation of the entire > untrimmed message again and again in accumulation as a conversation > progresses, then you can see how it damages the ability of searchable > archives to store and retrieve the relevant articles. > > Usenet has worked well in these ways for as long as I've been using it > (around ten years). For Outlook users to come along recently and spoil > it in the way they do, is quite wrong. They should be more socially > conscious and stop behaving like mindless playground bullies. > > -- > James Taylor > Based in Hammersmith, London, UK. > PGP key available ID: 3FBE1BF9 > Fingerprint: F19D803624ED6FE8 370045159F66FD02