OT: top-posting hatred [Was: Re: Update Manager in 9.04]

[Michael Haney]

On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 12:45 PM, Vincent Trouilliez
> The default behaviour of the e-mail client is hardly an excuse IMO,
> since people are supposed to edit the posts they are replying to
> anyway, to leave only the strict minimum that's useful to make sense of
> the reply. What if clients decide to put the text in the middle of the
> post ? "Oh, not my fault, my client did it this way, and I am disabled
> so I can't move the mouse the cursor to the appropriate place,
> sorry !". ;-)
>
> If people are so lazy that they can type a reply but somehow can't even
> edit out or move a cursor, one could question their basic skills and
> therefore wonder if there reply is useful/ of real value to start with ?
>

> They would stand out if *you*/people/me/everybody edited out all the
> irrelevant text, to leave only a few lines of the original post, above
> your reply. Like I did here: I bottom posted to make it
> natural-flowing, yet visually my comments do stand out, don't they ?
>
> I will get me coat...
>

The text above is a classic example of the same snarky attitude that
Kyle Smith was talking about concerning Top Posting.  Newbies come
here expecting to get help but half the time they get attitude
instead.  That's a major turn off and it will drive them away from the
group and Ubuntu.  I've been a technical support specialist for more
than 10 years so I know what I'm talking about.  On a Help Desk having
that sort of attitude towards newbies would get your ass fired, at
places where I've worked at least.  This isn't a Help Desk, but it
serves the same purpose so as a community we need to police ourselves
to rein in those who's action hurt the reputation of the community.
First impressions are everything, and newbies who come here for help
and get attitude instead will likely leave and also likely leave
Ubuntu.  As an Ubuntu Advocate I can't accept this kind of behaviour
because it makes my task of evangelizing the benefits of Ubuntu over
Windows that much harder and it perpetuates the myth that Linux people
are anti-social towards outsiders which isn't true at all.

The people who attack newbies hurt all of us.

-- 
Michael "TheZorch" Haney
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