[LINK] Top posting is evil

Ivan Trundle ivan at itrundle.com
Thu Nov 16 17:08:11 AEDT 2006


Couldn't agree more with Eleanor! Get a grip, people... There are  
times when top-posting makes far more sense - like now.

I came across this term a few days ago when researching for an  
article I'm updating on e-mail etiquette. Has anyone else come across  
the term, 'fisking' in regular conversation? (go ahead: Google it to  
find the answer - I'm talking about anecdotal evidence, not what is  
written by bloggers - and yes, I know of the Robert Fisk connection).

The joys of etiquette in an unruly environment such as e-mail.

By the way, Novell's GroupWise was (for many years) another culprit -  
only offering space for comments at the top of a response. It's only  
just changed this: it's now possible to put replies at the bottom.  
Modern, eh?

And why are we so worried about Vic all of a sudden? Sounds like some  
people miss the bloke...

iT


On 16/11/2006, at 4:43 PM, Eleanor Lister wrote:

> dear sweet linkish people,
>    have you really got nothing better to do with your time than  
> argue this?
>
> this is straight out of Gulliver's Travels ... where 2 countries  
> had a war over whether to break eggs at the small end or the large  
> end.
>
> Vicc, where are you when we need you?
>
> Chris Maltby wrote:
>>> Craig Sanders wrote:
>>>
>>>> top-posting is evil.
>>>>
>>
>> On Thu, Nov 16, 2006 at 02:49:19PM +1100, Rick Welykochy wrote:
>>
>>> What really adds to the annoyance is that I am seeing more and more
>>> top posting than ever before. Is this because of the preponderance
>>> of email clients that insist on a top-post format when reply to  
>>> emails?
>>>
>>> i.e. I don't think the user is responsible for this state
>>> of affairs. If your mailer top-posts it is a real pain to fix up the
>>> mess each time you post a reply to a list. Blame brain-dead software
>>> designers who think they know everything and in fact know fsck- 
>>> all about
>>> HCI.
>>>
>>
>> I think you can blame Microsoft for this as much as anyone - though I
>> think there's an "advanced" setting in Outlook that starts your reply
>> at the bottom of the quoted email - but it doesn't tag the quoted
>> email in any way that works in plain-text.
>>
>> One of the nicer features of Eudora that the Mozilla suite could use
>> is to only quote the text you have selected in the original message
>> when you click reply.
>>
>> Chris
>>
>
> and i'm breaking this egg at the other end too, hehehehe.
>
> regards,
>    EL
>
> ------------
> Eleanor Ashley Lister
> South Sydney Greens
> http://ssg.nsw.greens.org.au
> webmistress at ssg.nsw.greens.org.au
>
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>

--
Ivan Trundle
http://itrundle.com ivan at itrundle.com
ph: +61 (0)418 244 259 fx: +61 (0)2 6286 8742
skype: callto://ivanovitchk





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