On Wed, Jun 9, 2021 at 11:42 PM Dean Gibson (DB Administrator) <postgre...@mailpen.com> wrote: ... > Top-posting has been the predominantly common practice in the business & > government world for decades, & it is easy to adapt to. Just like HTML eMail (within reason) & more than 80 columns on a line.
Yeah, but I disliked it even before HTML was invented. 80 columns is a different kind of problem, and this days nearly every mua does wraping either on send or on display. The problem I found is top is easier when discussing simple things and doing ping-pong conversations. For the mails in this list, which I read daily more or less, and which have convoluted discussions, I find it , especially the untrimed versions normally used by top posters much harder. > Somehow, millions of ordinary people are able to adapt to this, on very > popular network eMail providers, like Google groups & groups.io, as well as > their work environment. Oh, I can adapt. I can process it, and in fact I faithfully copy the sender style when at work, after all I'm paid for it. But on things like this, technical discussions which I read ocasionally, I appreciate being able to read just a half page top down without bouncing. And you bounce a lot. > I suppose it comes from the practice in those environs when paper memos were > the norm, & if you needed to attach the contents of other paper memos to your > own for context, you stapled them to the BACK of your own. Because the alternative was to rewrite? .... > I wonder about the tolerance of the world we live in. Somehow, I can deal > with top-posting, bottom-posting, middle-posting, HTML eMail, straight-text > eMails, 80-column eMails, variable-width eMails, occasional ALL CAPS eMails, > & stupid multi-line signatures, all without getting my tail in a knot over it. I tolerate it, but my tolerance levels differ. I can deal with all of that, and try to not complain too much, but nobody is a good self judge. Currently I open the list in gmail 4k screen, lateral tabs, fits about a full page of text easily, if I cannot understand a message from a glance I normally just delete it. I'm not forcing anyone ro repost it. And the longer this things appear the less I try to do it. People are free to use any style, I'm free to discard the ones I do not like. > But then, I was VERY successful in my software development career, consulting > at about 30 companies (now retired). Maybe working with others without > conflict on silly issues, had something to do with it. That is work. I do not do consulting, and my people skills are not too good, but I haven't had complains and I certainly do not try to make people adopt any style, I just do tit for tat and go on. I care about the quality of postings in this lists, I do not care at all about the quality of mails I receive at work. My employer probably cares more, as he pays me to read them and would like for me to spend as little time as possible. Francisco Olarte.