Re: Top posting (was: Call for Foundation-supported Project Ideas)

Mehmet Erol Sanliturk <m.e.sanliturk@gmail.com> wrote:

> (1) persons tracking messages continuously do not need to read the same
> texts many times

I agree, so in that case DELETE the quoted text, if it's not relevent to
context.

> (2) persons tracking messages continuously are forced to move the cursor at
> the end of long messages . This is
>     taking unnecessarily long times which is a waste of time and difficult
> in cell phones

I find that annoying on a cell phone - when people "top post" and then
quote the whole message below, and I have to scroll through it all to
see if there's anything I'm missing.

> (3) if links to the previous messages are used , it is not important to
> place of the current message

Then don't quote the reply at all. It's that simple.


> (4) I am a subscriber of many mailing lists . Most of them are using top
> posting . FreeBSD convention is only an
>     annoyance for persons continuously reading messages ( some may think in
> a different way , obviously we will welcome
>     their ideas ) . Bottom posting is a reward to the persons occasionally
> reading the messages , a punishment
>     to the persons continuously reading messages . This is not a fair
> behavior toward the interested persons to

And they are wrong. In fact, the reasons I'm not more active in these
FreeBSD lists is precisely because of all the top-posting that goes on
here. There was a time people would be blasted for posting so inconsiderately.

What you don't get is that the whole point of quoting is to do it selectively,
to give context to the reply. Just like I'm doing now.

You shouldn't blindly quote the whole message - either at the top or
the bottom - that's just dumb.

> Therefore , insisting on historically used conventions which are not useful
> in these days will not supply any benefit to the
> FreeBSD other than lowering the number of interested users , causing not
> participating in its components such as mailing lists .

The "historical" convention is indeed useful if done properly. You don't appear
to understand what the "historical" convention is.

Stop turning every message into an annoying upside down chain-mail.

Quote selectively, and in context. It's logical, pretty obvious, and correct.

Jamie