Top posting

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

On Sunday, 21 March 2004 at 20:27:57 -0600, Kirk Strauser wrote:
> At 2004-03-22T01:23:45Z, "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at freebsd.org> writes:
>
>>> DO Unix mail clients have some option to config them to top post?
>
>> No.
>
> Kmail, for one, offers that as an option.  I started doing that at work
> after my boss explained that interleaved-trimmed posting is difficult to
> read.

I'm missing something here.  Top posting, interleaved posting and
bottom posting are not a function of the MUA, they're a function of
the human making a conscious decision how to write a message.  What do
*you* mean?

> I think the main difference between top- and interleaved-posting is
> one of latency.  In an office environment, when you're replying
> within 2 minutes of receipt of a typically short message, top
> posting is reasonable.

Well, I'll concede that it could barely be acceptable under such
conditions.

> On Usenet and mailing lists, where you see large, complex questions
> that get discussed over the span of days and weeks, interleaved
> posting is the only format that remotely makes sense.

Sure.  Now how do you know in advance to which category each message
belongs?  Where do you draw the line?  And what's the advantage of top
posting?

Greg
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