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Correct. Such behaviour is analogous to the typical British
monolingual tourist: instead of bothering to learn another language,
the mentality is: "those foreigners should understand English
instead". Those who _don't_ are to be treated with contempt and so:
"if I speak English louder, they will understand"(!). That is why even
when partial advice is given, it is arrogantly ignored.
Have no fear, the topic will re-emerge again. 
I fully agree with Tom and this list sounds more and more like a dictatorship-governed one: do it my way of f*ck off. I will probably f*ck off very soon, LO/OO seems more and more to be a lot less _Open_ than M$ stuff, and I hate they approach!
Jean-Louis
Hi Marc
It's not worth flogging a dead horse. He will not attempt to consider anyone else's point of view and if you dare to disagree he will just block you too. Hmmm, it might be wrth aiming for that now i think about it.There is, of course, only ever 1 way to view things and that's your own way, whoever you are. Something i usually like about OpenSource is that it usually allows each of us to follow our own different ways and yet all still be right at the same time even if it all looks completely different. Vive le difference (sorry my French is appalling)
^^--la... but your French is not that much appaling, probably less than my English [just to show that I'm also able to do inline posting, but I doubt that any body will ever read that!
Hi
Thanks Jean-Louis :) Your English is fine.
Please don't leave on account of the bad attitude of a tiny number of people in this thread! The other lists have never had any arguments like this and are very welcoming and helpful. They are much better to learn from too. Well, all the others that i am on are good and it sounds as though the others are roughly the same. Too busy and having too much fun to argue.
Just to get a bit more perspective, the people in this thread that seem to be trying to force people into bottom posting only average about 2posts/month with 2 of them (including the most vociferous one) only managing to squeeze out 2/week, ie only a tiny little bit more. So, although they are quite loud in this thread they don't really amount to much of a dictatorship.
Regards from
Tom
Notice that I am top posting as suggested by the guidelines ...
I don't get involved in these disputes, mainly because they are characterised by intransigence and _ad hominem_ arguments - and I won't do so now. But you simply cannot expect to argue based on a falsehood! When you wrote this, the guidelines (at http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette ) did not suggest top posting, but rather anything but:
... please do interspersion with trimming [...]. For a simple reply, this is equivalent to bottom-posting. So, remove extraneous material, and place your comments in logical order, after the text you are commenting upon.
But since then someone has changed this to remove any sort of guidance at all. Perhaps you made the change?! Or perhaps the original culprit did? It's a fun system - isn't it? - when those who are directed to guidelines and find they don't like them simply change them!
Brian Barker
Hi Marc,
I think that the main question is : want you help someone in this list or not? In Italy we say that "No one is born master"... I' a software developer but I don't know all languages that are available in the world. Each person expresses their thoughts to the best of their abilities... and if you are a "master" you need to understand that. A master that is an island is not useful... you can tell me about your knowledge, maybe I can tell you about my patience
If you hate messages that need long scroll down... simply ignore them, but remember that user mailing lists are used worldwide by "juveniles" (if I'm an advanced user, I don't need a mailing list) 
I hate bottom (!) posting because I think it is the most unnatural one!
When I speak to you I normally answer to your question without (!) repeating your question first!!! This is "The natural way", isn't it???
When I read one mail (in a mailing list too!!!) I normally have already red all the previous ones!!! All the previous ones!!!
If I failed to do it, I already would have to know that I'll must start from bottom... Full stop, imho!
I think bottom posting is born only (!) to enable people to start reading a thread from any point and not from the start... But what we yield is far from be a "natural way"...: when I read one mail I expect to read the answer to the the previous one, that is supposed to already be red!
My 2 euro cents!
Carlo
Hi
I did not change them but i applaud whoever did.
The main argument that the bottom-poster-fanatics use in order to demand that everyone else is only allowed to bottom post is that the guidelines suggest doing so. That is clearly not working so the guidelines needed to be changed to support what the target-market of this list are more comfortable with.
In my opinion people should be allowed to post as they want without being subjected to the bullying of the bottom-posters. That view seems to be supported by everyone that top-posts that has commented in this thread.
Can we not accept that the main purpose of this thread is to answer people's questions and make them feel comfortable about asking questions? Clearly not. It seems the main aim of this list, according to the bottom-posters, is
1. to keep subjecting us all to this pointless argument,
2. to bully anyone that doesn't obey them
3. to make people uncomfortable about asking questions for fear of intimidation.
If the guidelines now say that only top posting is acceptable then that is great because none of the top-posters are going to use those guidelines to bully people. None of the top-posters are going to claim that the guidelines are rules and not really guidelines at all.
Regards from
Tom
I think nobody needs this improductive discussion.
There too much places in the project where put the efforts.
What is the freedom?
You like top, do it.
You like bottom, do it.
You don't like top, don't read messages with top.
You don't like bottom, don't read messages with bottom.
You like the freedom.
Do what you like.
Let others to do what they like.
Miguel Ángel.
Actually, I was referring to the guidelines as originally stated. The guidelines have apparently been changed twice: once to add something about top posting and once to add a reference to the same source cited by the article generally. I was not engaged in any falsehood; I just don't check guidelines weekly.... And it sounds like you have a personal problem
Stefano,
I have been using listservs for more than 40 years and this is the only list I have ever been on where some 10% of the traffic is this thrashing over top posting. Yes, I regularly trim or intersperse comment, but when necessary in my opinion, or warranted, a portion of my comment may be top posted for the reasons set forth at all the usual sites, a practice That Is Not contrary to bottom posting
Moreover, I DO often get frustrated and find my self typing RTFM, bit that is with respect to substantive matters. This discussion is not substantive.
Hi
+1
Allow others to do as they want and forgive them their mistakes and/or different ways of doing things.
Regards from
Tom
Perhaps you misunderstood what I meant.
What I meant was "it feels mean to say that someone values a person's contributions so little that they have an automatic deletion filter on all of their contributions". Especially when it is someone that produces so much good for the LO community (say in the area of free documentation).
Reminds me of a movie where a soldier is asked something like "how can you shoot women and children" and the response "it is easy, you just don't lead them so much".
On Fri, 24 Feb 2012 21:24:58 -0500, Andrew Douglas Pitonyak
<andrew@pitonyak.org> wrote Re Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Top
posting:
On Wed, 22 Feb 2012 23:38:59 -0500, Andrew Douglas Pitonyak
<andrew@pitonyak.org> wrote Re Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Top
posting:I avoid the aggravation by having posts from Tom Davies automatically
deleted.Now that is cold...
Cold but effective.
Perhaps you misunderstood what I meant.
What I meant was "it feels mean to say that someone values a person's
contributions so little that they have an automatic deletion filter on
all of their contributions". Especially when it is someone that produces
so much good for the LO community (say in the area of free documentation).
If a poster insists that he be able to post in a manner that I find
confusing and offensive, then I'm not interested in reading anything
he is writting.
I find it very effective in making this mailing list readable.
Hi,
What I meant was "it feels mean to say that someone values a person's
contributions so little that they have an automatic deletion filter on
all of their contributions".
If a poster insists that he be able to post in a manner that I find
confusing and offensive, then I'm not interested in reading anything
he is writting.I find it very effective in making this mailing list readable.
True. However it´s not a solution for the main problem. The main
problem is, that people who do not follow the suggested posting
rules, destroy the value of the archive of this mailing list, which
is intended to be a growing knowlegde base.
Stefan
Hi
I think that is fair enough. The 2 worst case scenarios i can see as a result are
1. A questionner gets 2 almost identical answer or the same advice given in 2 different ways.
2. A questionner gets 2 completely different answers going in different directions
Both are actually quite positive. In 2 the questionner gets to pick and choose which answer they like or they get to try both ways. In 1 the questionner is given greater confidence in the answer and maybe has a greater understanding of how to deal with side-issues.
Both cases occur anyway and that is part of the advantage of having a public list. No-one can get along well with everyone all the time. If we all did then there would be substantial less great and inspiring art, literature, innovations and all the rest. So, i think it is all good.
Regards from
Tom
Hi
Official documentation, 3rd party documentation, official wiki-guides, 3rd party wiki-pages and blogs, distro-specific documentation (and wiki-guides and blogs) are all better and easier to search through than old archives of mailing lists for a product that develops so fast that answers get outdated so quickly.
It would be really fantastic if people could take valuable advice given in the lists and update the wiki-guides. It would be even better if the person that took the advice and found it worked did the update as they probably noticed details that old-timers may not have considered significant.
Regards from
Tom
On Sat, 25 Feb 2012 13:04:40 +0100, Stefan Weigel
<stefan.weigel@bildungskreis.org> wrote Re Re: [libreoffice-users] Re:
Top posting:
Hi,
What I meant was "it feels mean to say that someone values a person's
contributions so little that they have an automatic deletion filter on
all of their contributions".If a poster insists that he be able to post in a manner that I find
confusing and offensive, then I'm not interested in reading anything
he is writting.I find it very effective in making this mailing list readable.
True. However it´s not a solution for the main problem. The main
problem is, that people who do not follow the suggested posting
rules, destroy the value of the archive of this mailing list, which
is intended to be a growing knowlegde base.Stefan
That is very true Stefan. The question then becomes: how do we handle
"people who do not follow the suggested posting rules", and thus
"destroy the value of the archive of this mailing list".
There are only two options available: 1) individuals can kill-file
offenders, thus leaving them to correspond only with fellow top
posters; or 2) expel them from this list. I prefer option (1).
Frankly listservs make very poor knowledge bases for the obvious reasons, hence the efforts by some in other communities to distill the problem/resolution couplet into dynamic online docs where a user will find current comprehensive succinct and useful information.
Marc Grober <marc@interak.com> writes:
Frankly listservs make very poor knowledge bases for the obvious
reasons, hence the efforts by some in other communities to distill the
problem/resolution couplet into dynamic online docs where a user will
find current comprehensive succinct and useful information.
Such distilled couplets are a great resource provided they're kept up
to date--which in my experience they often aren't. Or even, somebody
sees such a couplet, but dated several years ago, and then posts to a
mailing list to make sure it's still correct: you get the worst of both
worlds.
So yes, mailing lists do make poor knowledge bases--but then, they're
not meant to be knowledge bases (or, for that matter, a substitute from
reading actual documentation). Knowledge bases make poor mailing lists,
too.
I can't even type it ....