Mail etiquette

[Michael]

Greg Albrecht wrote:
> On 18/01/07, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at freebsd.org> wrote:
>> > Top-posting defined simply ...
>> >
>> > A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
>> > Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
>> > A: Top-posting.
>> > Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?
>>
>> > Unfortunately all Micro$lop 'standard' email clients and a few
>> > others put the cursor at the top of the email, so the bad habit has
>> > developed across the world both domestically and in businesses, to
>> > write there, rather than continuing the email thread at the bottom.
>>
>> "Top posting" is only one issue.  Others of great importance are
>> trimming your posts, not breaking the lines into tiny fragments, and
>> not writing one-line paragraphs.  Your .sig is a good example of
>> things that people should remove from replies.
>
> i've been wanting to chime in on this. perhaps it should be taken into
> consideration that a good number of MODERN email clients support
> automatic threading of messages. this allows me to see each reply to a
> message after the original message, in succession. i understand that
> different people configure and use their email clients in different
> ways, but why is there such a pandering towards one versus the other.
> my email software  (gmail right now but has been mutt and thunderbird
> in the past) makes it really easy for me to get the context of a
> message as soon as it arrives. perhaps it's time for the rest of the
> world to step up and add auto-threading to their mta's?
>
> just my $0.02.
>
> -g
>
> ps: there's no need to reiterate how 'hard' it is for you to have to
> 'scroll down' to read the original message in a reply, how is that any
> different than me having to scroll down to read your reply?
>
I couldn't agree more Greg A.

I think it is time for most mta's step up and standardize a bit, but I 
also think people complain a little to much about top/bottom posting 
issue. 

Personally if the email app I'm using decides to place my cursor at the 
bottom/top, then that's where I start typing.  The order in which a 
conversation takes place, rarely has little to do with the content of 
the thread.

No offense to the 'groggy' one..... just my 2 cents is all.

BTW, 'groggy' one, I love your books bro!

Take care all,

Michael