If anyone's interested, I can really recommend a late V4 version of Netscape
( like 4.9 )  for browsing text newsgroups. It does the job very well. No
useless frilly baggage and itsy bitsy cute functions. Just simple plain
functionality !

Graham

Are you taking this skit on the road soon?

*************************
Dave

Which shows just how professional some of the whiners are.

Interesting observation Miles, I'd seen what you are saying, but never gave
it a second thought.

There's a simple reason for that. Email can reasonably presume the
recipient is familiar with the previous content. Not so with news messages.

Incidentally even with email, a complex mail is often best responded to
using the inline method ( the best of all ) .

Graham

Bingo!!

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

All squares are rectangles.  Your reply - no they aren't, that is only
because squares come when you buy one.  What the hell does that mean?

Grab your dictionary off the shelf, if you have one, and try finding
the word logic in it.  Come back when you understand what it means.

Why?  E-Mail, which is what I assume you mean, is not the same thing
as Usenet, which is what I assume you mean.  E-Mail uses SMTP over
TCP/IP, while Usenet uses NNTP over TCP/IP.  They have nothing in
common, other than the fact that they both use words, just like Word,
Excel, Adobe, Firefox, SAP, and a host of other programs.

Your considerable experience in using shitty software notwithstanding,
other people really do know more than you.

*************************
Dave

It doesn't change the fact that it makes it more difficult to establish
context.  When I correspond by email, I do it the same way I post to
usenet (trim irrelavent text and type right below what I'm responding
to).  Sometimes I go as far as reformatting an email to look more like a
usenet post (using an external editor like gvim makes it really easy).

Now this is at least a logical response.

*************************
Dave

Hit the post button too quickly on the last one.

Actually my logic is sound.  Let me explain.  First off, the majority
of posters on Usenet DO NOT use outhouse express.  The majority use a
large number of other programs, most of which typical Windows users
have never heard of, and even if they did, they would be incapable of
using.  The majority of Usenet users are not those who download porn
and spam groups such as this.  Although I grant that the majority of
bandwidth may be porn...

This group I refer to are mostly very technical people.  The very
people who build and maintain the systems that we rely on to "surf the
web".  The very systems that outhouse express users aren't even aware
of.  I guarantee you that the overwhelming majority of outhouse
express users could not even understand how the Internet works, and
have no idea what the difference is between NNTP, SMTP, HTTP and other
protocols.  Now of course we will have to put up with those who will
now claim to be experts because they were able to use Google to find
what these stand for, but we all know that is a ruse.

So, if we assume that say 70% of Usenet users are technical people,
and that as a rule, less than 10% of them use outhouse express ( I
doubt it is that high! ),  that gives us say 63% of all users who
don't touch that crappy MS program.  Now of the other 30% of Usenet
users, a significant number of them have the inate intelligence to
realize that outhouse express is not a news reader, and never will be.
These are the same ones who would not think of calling it an E-Mail
program either, because, well, they have brains.  Let's assume that
half of this group use something other than outhouse express.

That gives us 78% of users who actually understand that MS is not the
end all be all of software companies, who have further decided to use
one of the many alternatives (if you can call preexisting software
alternatives).  Now, of the 22% left, the ones who by my contrived
example use outhouse express, some percentage of them are top posters.
Keep in mind that pretty much nobody who uses a 'gasp' alternative
program on Usenet top posts.  So, we come to the conclusion that:

Wow.  See how that works?  Now, I grant that I am making these numbers
up.  However, if someone wants to do a statistical sampling, I am sure
we can come up with real numbers.  I guarantee that the number of
'alternative news reader client' users who top post approaches zero,
and that the number of users who top post refuse to acknowledge that
outhouse express is not a news reader.  Simple logic, really.

*************************
Dave

Proper trimming makes the reasons for bottom posting weak as well.  It
all comes down to personal preference.  Why get bothered by something so
simple either way?