On Thu, Oct 18, 2001 at 11:20:17AM +0000, Steve Mynott wrote: > Niklas Nordebo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > On Thu, Oct 18, 2001 at 09:33:02AM +0000, Steve Mynott wrote: > > > > > > FLAME ON > > > > paraphrased: "You're not going to get everyone to abide by those rules so > > I'm going to jeopardy quote now just to irritate you" > > That wasn't actually the intention. I will top quote when I think it > makes the email easier to read which I think is generally the case > when you are writing more than you are quoting. > > A drawback of bottom quoting is that you have to scroll past the quote > in order to get the new material. I read a _lot_ of email and such > scrolling wastes valuable time and key strokes. It also raises > visability of your words. I am well aware that its against > USENET/mailing list tradition as codified in 1989 but I think its just > geek snobbery against Outlook and AOL users and the like really.
Yes, a drawback of bottom quoting is that you have to scroll past the quote, *if you quote way too much* like I just did. And it has nothing to do with Outlook/AOL - I don't know about AOL but it's not harder to quote after what you're quoting in Outlook than in Pine (after you've changed a couple of settings to sane values, like putting in '>'. > Isn't the Perl way "There is More Than One Way to Do It?" Yes, but the london.pm list isn't in Perl, it's in English over mail. > Bottom quoting to me only makes sense to me now if you are responding > on a point to point basis (as I am doing now). So I use both quoting > styles. AS I had before, top quoting only makes sense when you're quoting too much. Like you did in the message I replied to. > > fucking Microsoft Outlook and not some kind of stoneage text mail client > > for hippy programmers. > > Sorry you lost me here. I can't understand whether you are being > ironic or not and so your meaning is lost. Somewhat ironic, somewhat pretty close to the mark in most cases I'd say. > I care more about the content people post and how easy it is to read > than the way they quote it. How is something is to read is very much dependent on presentation such as quoting. There is no distinction between good design and good usability. > > People do mistakes sometimes, especially if they're used to jeopardy > > quoting or whatever. The fact that people *will* do something doesn't mean > > that something isn't wrong/bad/whatever, as anyone with even a vague grasp > > of logic will understand. > > I think the solution is client-side (filtering) rather than > server-side. Seems like a complicated solution to a simple problem to me. > Complaining about quoting really is petty and a total waste of time. No, it generally helps. I'm on several mailing lists with non-technical people who have learnt not to reply on top and quote the entire message chain below (which I'm sure even you don't think has it's place). > If you hate "broken quoting" so much why don't you write a Perl script > to "fix" it to the way you like and put all your mail through it? It's not that much of a problem, since most people I correspond with quote in a non-broken way. -- Niklas Nordebo -><- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -><- +447966251290 "The day is seven hours and fifteen minutes old, and already it's crippled with the weight of my evasions, deceit, and downright lies"
