Jonathan Schleifer wrote:
Oh, and if we're already at it, you should stop using TOFU[1], which
is considered very impolite on mailing lists.
--
Jonathan
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOFU#Top-posting
I personally strongly dislike bottom-posting, and the Wikipedia article
you cite also indicates there are preference differences out there,
including within mailing lists.
But instead of getting into a fruitless argument about what we think is
the "right" way, how about we consider some way to solve the problem?
Given that we already have the benefit of a formal hierarchical
structure within XMPP via XML, how about a namespaced child of <message
type=normal> (too late for <body>) to keep track of hierarchical content
within a posting, which besides enabling posting order display to differ
by user preference, would also more easily enable scripting to collapse
or navigate a section of quotations, differentially auto-color replies
from particular users or levels, etc.? Perhaps even XHTML-IM (XEP 0071)
could be overloaded for such a purpose via <blockquote>'s @cite
attribute (which could use an XMPP URI or email URI to indicate
authorship) and/or the @class attribute (e.g., to distinguish citations
from the "inner thread" from those outside of its context).
For that matter, how about some mechanisms to enable forking of threads,
even within a post? (along the lines of, and potentially supporting,
wikis, discussion forums, blogs, versioning systems, etc., since, to my
mind, these all should all only be slightly different in terms of
protocol syntax so that one can easily treat one as (or convert one to)
the other, as there is a lot of albeit inadequate convergence between
them already). (Sorry I am not too well-informed on all of the numerous
specs you all have marvelously already put out there, so my apologies to
whatever extent this covers ground already covered.)
best wishes,
Brett
