Warren wrote:
madgardener wrote:
And just when does posting a JPG of a gardening wonder constitute
being frowned upon?

The following things can happen when a binary is posted in a
non-binary group:

1. Some servers won't even accept the message.

2. People on dial-up, especially those that pay by the minute,
may find themselves paying for crap they didn't want in the first
place.

3. Most servers allocate a certain amount of space for each group
based on whether the group is a discussion or binary group.
Essentially everytime someone posts a text message in a text group,
an old message is deleted. When someone posts a binary, a couple
hundred old messages may end up deleted. Not a big deal if there
was three or four months worth of messages there, but a big deal if
the server in question only had about a week's worth of messages.
One big picture could delete a lot of messages that people didn't
get a chance to read yet.

Essentially, posting a binary in a discussion group is an extremely
selfish thing to do. Perhaps the most selfish thing someone can do
on Usenet. It's on par with draining the community well to water
your garden, even though it means others may go dry.

But if you're so sure that you're more important that the whole
community, go right ahead and show us how selfish you can be.

Posting in html is better than posting a binary, but it's still
pretty selfish. Not everyone uses an html newsreader, and some who
do turn off html to lessen the risk of getting a virus or acquiring
a trojan. Posting in html says that you think what you have to say
is more important than practicing safe computing practices.

Why do you need a fancy font, anyway? Does a fancy font make the
message better? Does it mean that the words are not enough?

But again, if you feel you're more important than the rest of us, go
right ahead.

You must be fun to follow at the buffet table.

Thank you Warren. You are a much better wordsmith than I.

--

Travis in Shoreline (just North of Seattle) Washington
USDA Zone 8b
Sunset Zone 5