Re: Posting format

["Robert L. Harris" <Robert.L.Harris@rdlg.net>]

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Thus spake Steven Cole (elenstev@mesatop.com):

> On Wed, 2003-07-23 at 17:32, bill davidsen wrote:
> > A one or two line summary at the top of an article often saves the
> > reader from reading the entire thing.
> > 
> > In article <20030723225333.GC16244@louise.pinerecords.com>,
> > Tomas Szepe  <szepe@pinerecords.com> wrote:
> [snipped]
> > | 
> > | Would you people please stop replying above the original messages?
> > | 
> > | One could say this evil (pioneered by certain silly mail clients btw)
> > | has been spreading like plague around here lately.
> > | 
> > | Quoting the lkml FAQ ->
> > | (REG) And please reply after the quoted text, not before it (as per RFC
> > | 1855).  It's very confusing to see a reply before the quoted context.
> > 
> [snipped]
> > 
> > |                                                                   And
> > | it's embarrassing: it makes you look like a newbie.  Change your mailer if
> > | necessary, if the one you have makes it hard to do reply-after-quoting.
> > | I know some people like to quote the entire message they are replying to,
> > | so they put their reply right at the top so people won't give up after the
> > | first page of quoted material.  Don't do it.  It's annoying.  Just learn to
> > | stop quoting everything.  No-one wants to see it all anyway (list archives
> > | allow people to see everything if they missed it).  You're not helping
> > | yourself anyway, as you're more likely to be ignored if you
> > | reply-before-quoting.
> > 
> > Seriously, you have a point, but his two liner did not require the
> > context of the bulk of the post. There have been some far worse choices
> > of top posting, and the main reason for not top posting is because it's
> > hard to read *when context is needed*.
> > 
> > Your point is good, I think you could have picked a number of better
> > examples to make it.
> 
> More exposition regarding top vs bottom posting: Replying at the bottom
> results in an easily parseable tree. Consider the following conversation
> where everyone replies at the bottom.


On the other hand if everyone posted at the top it would be considerably
easier reading for those who have been following the conversation
without having to scroll down and figure out where comments and the
conversation is at.  You could read just the top post and go from there.
For those new to the conversation they can just start at the bottom and
scroll up.  When the next post comes in they just read the top post
again instead of scrolling down to the bottom or middle somewhere to
figure out what/when/where.

Using VI and Mutt, the cursor starts at the top not the bottom or
anywhere in the middle so there's and ease of use for CLI mail readers
as well instead of the GUI oriented.


:wq!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert L. Harris                     | GPG Key ID: E344DA3B
                                         @ x-hkp://pgp.mit.edu 
DISCLAIMER:
      These are MY OPINIONS ALONE.  I speak for no-one else.

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