[LINK] Top posting is evil [was Re: vip-l: Electronic votiing]

[Ivan Trundle]

I'm feeling just a tiny bit mischievous here...


On 16/11/2006, at 2:49 PM, Rick Welykochy wrote:

> Craig Sanders wrote:
>
>> ps: top-posting is evil.  replies go underneath quoted material,  
>> not above it.

Okay, let's extend this a bit. No, a lot.

>
> Couldn't agree with you more.

I beg to differ.

> Someone's sig even demonstrates how
> ridiculous

I'm not sure I understand what sigs have to do with this. More info,  
please.

> tand disinformative top posting is.

How is it disinformative, and what does the word mean anyway?

> What really adds to the annoyance is that I am seeing more and more
> top posting than ever before.

Perhaps you are simply getting more e-mail? I'm not seeing that at  
all - quite the opposite, in fact. Especially since most people I now  
have contact with use more-intelligent mail clients. I can see a lot  
of variance here.

> Is this because of the preponderance
> of email clients that insist

Why use 'insist' - I thought e-mail clients were passive? But this  
aside, do we have stats on what mail clients are in use around the  
world? Could be interesting information. And do we know how they  
handle user-generated replies?

> on a top-post format when reply to emails?

I was going to place a comment in here, but it's getting harder to  
understand the flow of conversation because I've broken it up into  
shreds.

> i.e. I don't think the user is responsible for this state
> of affairs.

Quite. I blame the RFC.

> If your mailer top-posts it is a real pain to fix up the
> mess

What mess? I see a greater mess here, and it can only get worse if  
anyone responds.

> each time you post a reply to a list.

Or not, as the case may be. See point above.

> Blame brain-dead software
> designers

...who, in turn, respond to ...?

> who think they know everything

They should know a lot more than us in these things, surely?

> and in fact know fsck-all about
> HCI.

HCI is not an exact science. This much I do know.

> cheers

And cheers from me.

> rickw
>
>
> P.S. I like the open source

Is there a reason for open-source to be inherently better here?

> Mozilla mailers in this regard: they always
> quote first then let me answer underneath.

Or in the case of Apple's Mail.app, where one can select the text  
that one wishes to reply to, and this is copied into the message, pre- 
quoted. Others do this too.

> The antaural

What makes reading this distorted passage any more natural than  
placing a general comment at the top, or bottom?

> order of reading :)

Order? I defy anyone to add to this thread and reply with further  
comment. Actually, I'd be surprised if anyone even reads this far.