<RANT> On 12/3/2007, David ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > I've never understood the anti-top posting mentality. A lot of > (most?) mail clients default to top-posting, and if you bottom-post, > then you have to clear out that lovely 9 line sf.net sig first. Also, > reading top-posted emails is much easier due to the fact that you > don't have to scroll all the way to the bottom of each email, go to > the next email in the thread, then scroll to the bottom of that one, > and so on.
You claim you've never understood the mentality, yet your words above prove beyond a doubt that you have NEVER bothered to read any of the links that I'm sure people have sent to you explaining why bottom/in-line posting is best, especially on email discussion lists. If you had, you would know that UNEDITED bottom posting is, as you said, even worse than top-posting. Not one, single bottom-posting online reference has EVER suggested such crap-crud. Bottom/in-line posting is just the sane way to engage in email discussions. It REQUIRES you to actually put a little extra effort into making your posts readable - and in so doing, requires you to CLEAN IT UP, by t rimming all the 'fat' so to speak. > The most recent message in the thread is the most important part of > the email, so it should go on top. No - it should go immediately AFTER the question/point it is in response to, just as this email is doing. Jeapordy is the only 'game' where the answer comes before the question. > The quoted reply is just there for reference, archival, or what have > you, but it isn't even necessary since the rest of the quotes reply > is available elsewhere. If it isn't necessary, then DON'T CLUTTER THE LIST WITH IT. Top-posting is LAZINESS, pure and simple, and is only excusable in casual personal conversations with friends and family - and maybe situations like Micheals here when he is replying from his phone, making it exceedingly difficult to trim or otherwise clean up a message. But on email discussion lists, especially professionally oriented ones where you are going to try to find help for something - like the ASSP discussion list - it SHOULD be unacceptable - but of course, the list owner always has the last say. > If all you have is a single email message for reference, then I can > understand that bottom-posting would be better to easier get a view > of the whole conversation, but such is rarely the case. In many cases, that IS the case. I certainly don't like having to trawl through endless mindlessly quoted text complete with endless repeats of list signatures, etc, to try to find the context - and I guarantee you had no trouble understanding the context of my replies in this message, did you? > It seems like it's an archaic holdover from usenet at best. It only 'seems' that way, because you are apparently too lazy to actually go and read the myriad references out there explaining why it is best. Now, maybe next time you won't choose to open this can of worms - or even better, maybe you'll google bottom posting and learn something... </RANT> -- Best regards, Charles ------------------------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net email is sponsored by: The Future of Linux Business White Paper from Novell. From the desktop to the data center, Linux is going mainstream. Let it simplify your IT future. http://altfarm.mediaplex.com/ad/ck/8857-50307-18918-4 _______________________________________________ Assp-user mailing list Assp-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/assp-user
