Top posting

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

[Format recovered--see http://www.lemis.com/email/email-format.html]

RFC 1855 violation, reordered.
Mutilated IRL.

On Friday, 19 March 2004 at 14:28:24 -0800, Charles McManis wrote:
> On Friday 19 March 2004 09:46, Louis LeBlanc wrote:
>> On 03/19/04 09:21 AM, Joshua Lokken sat at the `puter and typed:
>>> http://www.google.com/search?q=rfc+top+posting&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
>>>
>>> Wow, almost every single reply to the list today was top posted.
>>> People, please know (and you must, you have to read them, too)
>>> that posting replies to the top of an email is, well, counter-
>>> intuitive, hard to follow, and goes against the general grain of
>>> RFC 1855.  Please, it has been requested from many users of this
>>> list, do not top post replies, but don't stop sending them ;)
>>
>> Yes, it has been requested from many users, and quite a few have flat
>> out refused to follow this logical norm.
>
> Perhaps it isn't "logical", if you've read all the email then the
> quoted thread is just reference anyway.

I suppose it depends on your attention span.  There were three
paragraphs in this message, and I had to search for the relevant
section.  If you get 2,500 mail messages a day, you don't need this
extra work.  If you don't get 2,500 mail messages a day, you still
don't need this extra work.

In any case, I frequently see messages where the relationship between
the original and the reply is tenuous at best.  It seems that people
who use top-posting often don't go to the trouble to compare the reply
to what they are replying to (not surprising, since it's not nearby).
The result is that top-posted replies often miss the point.

>> Others simply follow the precedent set in any given thread, and
>> some few will go so far as to delete the trailing messages and try
>> to herd an already errant thread in the right direction.  For my
>> part, my reply behavior depends on the audience.  One would think
>> that a company with so many geeks (from developers to SW
>> architects) would tend to do this right, but not so.

Note that this paragraph is completely irrelevant to your reply (but
not to the thread).  Why leave it in to muddy the waters?

>> Bottom line, don't hold your breath.  Unfortunately, many mail clients
>> don't show the replied email during reply composition but place it
>> below the response, and most default to replying at the top anyway.
>> Most users just don't bother to correct it when the option is there.
>

> This is the "new stuff". I love being able to read mail in the
> preview-pane vs "next message" , jump to the bottom, "next message"
> jump to the bottom.

Sorry, I don't understand this.

> It comes down to opinion I think

I suppose it comes down to attention to detail and an interest in
accurate communication.

>> I feel your pain dude.

Tell me about it.

Greg
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