[GRLUG] Social norms

[Tim]

On Sun, 2008-05-11 at 11:09 -0400, Benjamin Flanders wrote:
> What is the social norm.  Isn't that where the normal is commonly
> agreed upon?  Is placing responses interspersed throughout the e-mail
> commonly agreed upon?
> 
> Personally I don't like having to scroll through the whole e-mail to
> look for responses.  Sometimes, the response is hidden by the ">" of
> the previous empty line.  I prefer top posting.  No scrolling, the
> responses all right there.
> 
> Since this group is divided on this topic, could we consider one way
> or the other a "social norm"?  I don't think so.  I think we need to
> just overlook the differing styles of responses and discuss what those
> responses are about.
> 
> On Sun, May 11, 2008 at 10:36 AM, Tim Schmidt <timschmidt at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Sun, May 11, 2008 at 7:45 AM, David Pembrook <david at pembrook.net> wrote:
> >  > Why do we have to start these things.. I still prefer top post but this
> >  >  is only trouble
> >
> >  Because, as a community, we have no mandatory education system to
> >  facilitate passing on our social norms and values.  Thoroughly
> >  self-motivated people can still obtain that information, but as we've
> >  seen, quite a few people haven't.  So...  a question for the sociology
> >  students out there...  how do societies - cultures - enforce their
> >  social norms?  (and they _do_ enforce them)
> >
> 
> >  Through ridicule and loss of respect.
> >
> >  It would be great if everyone got a decent FOSS community education,
> >  but there will always be someone who hasn't.  Flamewars and occasional
> >  flare-ups are simply our culture's way of catching the stragglers.
> >
> >
> >

Here's my opinion.

Forums are read from the top down, oldest being first. They do not have
new messages at the top of the threads. Mailing lists should adhere to
that same format. The only reason people are weirded out by bottom
posting is because Micro$oft started the trend with Outlook Express. All
other email clients used the bottom post method by default. I'm not sure
about Eudora but I know Thunderbird does. Back in BBS days everything
was bottom post also and I think that's where the mailing list format
originated with FIDONET and such.

Also.

When there is a lot of people responding to the same thread and you top
post it becomes very difficult to follow along. The top post breaks the
flow of a message making you read the bottom first and scroll up. It
just doesn't make sense. If there are 2-3messages in the thread it
doesn't really matter I guess, the "Instant Message" format as mentioned
earlier.

So following from the precedence of fidonet and most other FOSS mailing
lists that specifically require bottom posting I say that it should be
here. I know I'm new on this list but that's my 3 cents.

Tim