On Sunday, October 13, 2002, at 06:22 PM, Richard Kleim wrote: > [... snip ...] > Bottom posting is a relic of the text-email days, > and is useful primarily with small messages.
we're still largely in a text-email day and age. most clients support stylized text, but few do the same kind of stylized text. some do Rich Text Format, some do HTML, some do something else entirely. most clients can only create one type of stylized text and can read one or two formats in incoming mail. many don't support any stylized text in incoming OR outgoing email. I, for instance, use pine exclusively when I'm relegated to a dial-up on the road or when I'm using someone else's computer to check my mail. Would you care to see what stylized text looks like in Pine? If i'm lucky, the terminal program just strips out all of the styling and shows the message in plain text. If the sender was using a standards conforming email client (that is, a non-microsoft client), I get a message stating that the message requires a character set that my current terminal doesn't support. If I'm unlucky and the sender is using a non-compliant mail program, a two or three line email can be rendered as several pages of completely incomprehensible jibberish. usually an alternation of ^'s and some other characters. Dan may have some actual numbers, but I'm willing to bet that the majority of the people he smacks for forgetting to trim footers (one of his biggest pet peeves) are top-posters. I know that when I managed a mailing list, the majority of the excessive-quoters on my list were top-posters. -- The iMac List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | - Epson Stylus Color 580 Printers - new at $69 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> iMac List info: <http://lowendmac.com/imac/list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/imac-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
