From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S271383AbTGWXZW (ORCPT ); Wed, 23 Jul 2003 19:25:22 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S271324AbTGWXZW (ORCPT ); Wed, 23 Jul 2003 19:25:22 -0400 Received: from tmr-02.dsl.thebiz.net ([216.238.38.204]:52744 "EHLO gatekeeper.tmr.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S271383AbTGWXZU (ORCPT ); Wed, 23 Jul 2003 19:25:20 -0400 To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Path: gatekeeper.tmr.com!davidsen From: davidsen@tmr.com (bill davidsen) Newsgroups: mail.linux-kernel Subject: Posting format Date: 23 Jul 2003 23:32:54 GMT Organization: TMR Associates, Schenectady NY Message-ID: References: <20030723201801.GB32585@rdlg.net> <20030723212224.A527@infradead.org> <20030723220037.GC32585@rdlg.net> <20030723225333.GC16244@louise.pinerecords.com> X-Trace: gatekeeper.tmr.com 1059003174 22592 192.168.12.62 (23 Jul 2003 23:32:54 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@tmr.com Originator: davidsen@gatekeeper.tmr.com Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org 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 wrote: | > [Robert.L.Harris@rdlg.net] | > | > While I'm anything but a qualified coder I'm willing to test code on | > this bugger or other help where soundly possible. | | 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. What does it say about changing the topic without changing the header? | 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. -- bill davidsen CTO, TMR Associates, Inc Doing interesting things with little computers since 1979.