Hello again! Nice to hear from you.
I'm going to start by taking rather huge liberties with the order of you
posting:

In message ,
"Capitol" wrote:

There, I hope that those who were waiting for the next piece of comment are
not too disappointed.

Not that I was particularly "waiting" for it, but I am interested to
read your comments. "Disappointed" may be an appropriate word, but
that's not the point. You are entitled to your opinions - for most of
them are simply that - and I to mine. We may debate the issue for
eternity and never come to a conclusion and, at the end of it, what does
it matter? Having said that, your inability to grasp certain facts does
make your preaching at the end of your post rather less impressive.

Back to the plot.


Myth 1) a large percentage of newsreaders are bottom oriented.

To be pedantic, a large number of newsreaders *are* bottom oriented.
This being the case when Outlook Express is one of maybe 13 or 14
different newsreaders observed in this group, and many more in use
worldwide. 1 out of 13 is less than 8%

But I know that isn't what you meant :-) You were talking about the
population of newsreaders as a whole:


1) The current newsreader used in say 98% of PC's world wide is OE.
Firstly I'd like to know where you get that figure. Crumbs, I've never
even heard anyone claim that 98% of the world's PCs run Microsoft OSes,
let alone OE. Even if 90% of the world's PCs (those directly facing
users and not "behind the scenes" machines) use a Microsoft OS, I find
it doubtful that as many as 90% run Outlook Express. I doubt you'd get
to 90% even with OE and Outlook combined.

I'm sorry if this hurts, but unless you can back up your suppositions
with figures then your assertions are no better than IMM's. Mine aren't
much good either, but I haven't claimed they are.

You've started from the wrong end. We're not worried about the total
number of PCs, we're worried about the number of PCs which are used to
access usenet directly and not via a web interface.

Again, this is personal experience and not enumerated fact, but of the
people with internet access I know well (maybe 10 or so) not *one* reads
the newsgroups, via a newsreader or the web. It would be an interesting
survey to do but I think you would find that if you could survey all
those who regularly used usenet over a period of (say) a month, your
sample would have a larger proportion of long-term computer users than
the internet-using public as a whole.

You have to *know* about usenet before you can use it, and no-one goes
out of their way to publicise it, certainly not the web-based content
providers who would rather you used their own services than get the
information for free. Likewise, most "green" internet users feel safe in
the environs of a web browser or email client, but not when asked to
start doing something unusual. Having said that, usenet is getting a
boost now that Google has brought deja under its banner and access is
easy via the world's most well-known search engine.

*If* my supposition is correct then I think you will find that even if
the proportion of OE users as a whole is as much as 90%, the proportion
of OE users among usenet users is much lower, because these people are
more willing to be different.

2) OE ( and now Mozilla) are top and middle posting systems.
We're arguing about top-only posting. We have already agreed that
middle-posting is often a Good Thing.

2) If this group does not show 98% of users using OE, then for a public
consumer information oriented group it is a failure! Think about it!

No, it doesn't show that this particular group is a failure, it just
supports my proposition above that Joe Public doesn't (generally) read
usenet. One day when I am *terminally* bored I may survey some of the
other groups I read to see if the spread of newsreaders is similar.



Myth 2) Bottom posting is the necessary thing.

1) Bottom posting is an historical accident of news readers which have
become obsolete.
Bottom posting may be an historical accident, though I'm sure that the
people who first decided it should be like that would disagree, but
calling newsreaders which support it "obsolete" is a bit like when IMM
called my Diesel car various names because "Diesel is dirty and noisy
and expensive to run" - he obviously hadn't realised that engine
technology has moved a *heck* of a long way in the last 15 years, and
far from being an "old, dirty technology", Diesel is (apart from the
particulate thing) one of the cleanest forms of propulsion in common
usage.

Unix clone users can help here, but I bet you could find, if you looked,
half a dozen newsreaders whose default mode of operation is *not*
top-posting, which have been launched *since* Outlook became
widely-used, and which are still being actively developed.

2) The minority news readers are the only filing system which works
backwards.
My personal filing system doesn't have a "backwards" and a "forwards",
it is subject-oriented :-) Neither does it expire purely based on age in
the same way my newsreader does.

3) The new standard is Microsoft, by virtue of market penetration. You may
not like it, but it's the real world. ( It's also sometimes got better spell
checking than some other products!)

Microsoft may have been the dominant market player for the last 15
years, but that's not to say it will stay that way. For 30 years prior
to that, IBM was the dominant market force. Where are they now? (Did I
spot someone on this thread using OS/2?)

4) For short queries top posting is to be preferred using the majority OE
newsreader.
Let's forget this "majority/minority" thing, eh?

A properly-spaced answer may work well top-posted, but it works just as
well post-posted.

5) For long questions, middle posting is used, but it is read from the top,
like any other document.
As I said, we've already agreed this. Mid posting is a variant on bottom
posting (posting the answer after the question) *not* top posting
(posting the answer before the question)

6) When did you last see a book which you read backwards. Right to left,
yes, backwards, no!

Which of these is backwards?

A:
John, do you have a hammer I can borrow?
Yes Pete.
Can I come over to fetch it in ten minutes?
Come any time you like Pete, the kettle's on.
Thanks. See you soon.

or B:

Thanks. See you soon.
Come any time you like Pete, the kettle's on.
Can I come over to fetch it in ten minutes?
Yes Pete.
John, do you have a hammer I can borrow?

?

Which of these is top posted?


Myth 3 Rigid rules of conduct are necessary.

1) The average information content is less than 1% of the posts. ( Make that
0.1% if it's an interchange between Andy and IMM)

Not sure how you worked the figure out, but the principle I agree with.

2) The content is the important factor not the position.

Absolutely. However, *access* to the content is even more important. A
thread messed-up with a mixture of top and post-posting is a *pig* from
which to extract information. I speak from experience. And there's no
guarantee that you will see every post in a thread, so you may need to
read information buried deep in the quoting.

3) It's a public news group with a free will user base. Rules, and rudeness
are totally unnecessary.

Rudeness is totally unnecessary, rules are not. Without rules this ng
*could* degenerate into a mass depositry for everything from personal
adverts to binary images of sex with power tools (ouch!). There is no
law enforcement agency, no moderator, no group of "guardians" cancelling
off-charter posts, but there *is* a certain courtesy among users that
certain ways of doing something are normal for this group and hence
should be followed.

It's a free will society (I guess you could argue that one, but accept
it for now). However, I don't have the inalienable right to crank my
stereo up to 90% and play awful 1970s Welsh pop music in my living room
as I know for a fact that it would not be as interesting to my
neighbours as I find it myself. I restrict my music to volume levels
which they cannot (usually) hear, or play it loud when I know they are
out.


Myth 4) Snipping is always necessary.

1) Memory and bandwidth are now such that snipping is totally unnecessary in
a top posting system.
If you accept the first part of the argument (personally, I don't and
I'll tell you why in a second) then you must also accept that snipping
is unnecessary in a post-posting system. After all, it takes but a quick
tap of the "End" key to skip it all, doesn't it? ;-)

But I have to come back to it; bandwidth *is* still an issue, for many
internet users. Where I am now there is no cable and no ADSL. ISDN is
possible, but I really can't spare the cash. I can't even justify
spending £30 on a new 56k modem since my 33k6 modem works perfectly
well.

I will be moving soon, 200 miles away where there is *still* no cable,
no ADSL and I'll have even less spare cash. I'm going to be stuck with
33k6 for several years to come. To return to my internet-using friends
mentioned above, they *all*, except two, use modems. Granted, they're
56k modems, but some of them have better lines than others and I've yet
to hear reports of connection speeds above 48k (mind you, some wouldn't
know how to check it :-)

Even memory can still be an issue. I recently spent a year away from
home. My only internet access was via a Psion Series 5mx - I didn't take
my main computer for space and security reasons and a laptop was a: too
much money and b: even less secure. 16M of RAM and a 30M CF card.
Hmmm...

....and my home computer is now on its third hard disc. It took me
*months* to save up for the 20G drive I installed about 18 months ago.
Prior to that I had a 1G6 drive with never more than 10M free. A couple
of weeks on holiday and downloading email and news would fill that right
up until I could expire some.

Not everyone is able to upgrade every 18 months. The average age of kit
among my internet-using acquaintances is probably somewhere around 3
years. No, honestly.

To be fair though, a page of text is hardly anything, even to a
3-year-old computer (my own was bought 9 years ago, though it has been
upgraded a little since then).

2) Maybe we can get some of our readers back to work if we all try to use
more bandwidth and force telecomm companies to increase their capacity!
Wot?

3) Snipping can on occasions distort the reasoning of the participants.

Absolutely. Completely agree. Bad snipping is worse than no snipping at
all. The very worst im my opinion is the newsreader which doesn't quote
properly - leaving out the "Joe Bloggs wrote" things and not indenting.


Myth 5) We should never consider change.

1) There is a term for the people who think in this way, Luddites, if I
recall correctly. I watched much of British industry applying this strategy.
It no longer exists!

Rising to the defence of the Luddites is one of my hobbies. The myth is
that they were "anti technology". They were not. They had absolutely no
problem with the technology per-se, but they *did* have a problem with
the way it was applied.

Jacquard loom installed at' mill. Five operators doing the work of
twenty. What happens to the 15? "I don't care" says the mill owner,
"they can rot on the streets as far as I'm concerned. This is the new
way of doing things and if you don't like it you can lump it."

*This* is why the Luddites were protesting. Does it sound familiar?

And to say that the reason British Industry has all but disappeared is
because it refused to "change with the times" is a complete
misunderstanding of the way it really happened, at least in some places.
I won't mention specific examples now, but if you would care to take a
look at what has happened in South Wales since the miners' strike, and
particularly what has happened in the last 18 months or so I think you'd
be surprised.

2) The new standard is Microsoft, perhaps we should consider change.
Next year's standard may be something else :-) Are you going to become
a missionary of post-posting if next year's standard uses that by
default?

3) Mozilla did it!

Mozilla is configurable. Mind you, so is OE. To an extent.

( Aside, amongst my other systems,( and no, I'm not a computer buff) I also
have a Linux system using Mandrake 9, it's about as consumer friendly as
Windows1, which was never issued.

Windows 2 was dire too, and I did actually use that.

Sinclair BASIC was about as user friendly as a punch-card and pin, but
that didn't stop people doing incredible (for the time) things with it.
It depends on your perspective. Someone brought up on and understanding
the very core (literally) of a 1960s computer would either have found a
Spectrum trivial ("because it is not a serious cometitor to our
mainframes") or confusing (because it operated in "immediate" rather
than "shared" or "batch" modes). A 13-year-old holding his gleaming new
Spectrum on the other hand sees possibilities limited only by
imagination and a bit of money. "Batch" mode to him is as confusing as
the workings of parliament.

"Trivial" and "confusing" are accusations regularly aimed at Linux and
similar OSes and in some cases the accusations are correct. Where now
AmigaOS and TOS? But until time has tested them, you cannot tell.

For example, are you aware that a supplier of computer equipment and
software to schools has reported Microsoft to the Office of Fair
Trading? He does not install Microsoft products but has found that
schools where there is a mixture of Microsoft and other things are being
forced by MS to buy MS licences *even for those computers with no MS
software on whatsoever*.

It wasn't so long ago that schools were supposedly "standardising" on
Microsoft products "because that is what is in the workplace". This
seems not to be the case any more.


Linux will not be around for at least 3
years, and the consumer version will use a top posting newsreader!)

Well, that's a testable prediction. Whether anyone will a: remember to
check in three years and b: care is a matter for time to reveal. I dare
say there will be half a dozen or more newsreaders competing happily
when the time comes, too.

Myth 6) You want everybody to read your post.

1) If I wanted everybody to read my post, I'd buy newspaper advertising.
2) Reading is a free will activity.
3) Book burning is a long established tradition of pedants, I've never
noticed that it changed anything, but it keeps them happy for a while


Nobody writes here *expecting* everybody to read a post. BUT, everybody
writes here realising that everybody has the right to read a post and
should not be denied that right because of personal preference. Would
you consider posting HTML only? No? Why? Isn't that OE's default
behaviour?

.
Myth 7) People can be changed.

[...]
Granted. I'm not trying to change your beliefs, just your attitude :-)

A couple of other points which I noticed,
[...]
2) Microsoft don't own the internet. No, they don't, but like it or not, MS
(and not always for the better) have made it the success which it is today.
Sorry, I don't buy that one either. The internet was a rip-roaring
success before MS even realised it existed. They may have brought
internet useage to a wider and less technically-able audience, but this
is by the simple act of insisting on the use of their own software when
previously people were free to choose.

If anyone should get credit for "making the internet a success" I reckon
it should be first the share/freeware writers for making it possible
to connect any ol' thing to the internet and forcing big companies to
take notice, secondly AOL as their "easy" software predates MS by a long
way, thirdly (in this country) Freeserve for being the first to offer a
"free" connection; even though it wasn't really free at all, people
believed that the internet had suddenly become affordable.

That's enough ranting for now. I'm all "ranted out" so you probably
won't see anything from me until I've recharged my batteries :-)

Have fun with the lifestyle :-) (Vague DA quote)

Hwyl!

M.

--
Martin Angove (it's Cornish for "Smith") - ARM/Digital SA110 RPC
See the Aber Valley -- http://www.tridwr.demon.co.uk/abervalley.html
.... "42? 7 and a half million years and all you can come up with is 42?!"