I've been using Linux for over seven years and, until this list, I've never heard anyone complaining about top-posting vs bottom-posting. I think it's silly to think one way is right -- regardless of your preference of client. The purpose of having a 'subject' line is to inform the reader of the e-mail what the subject of the e-mail is about, so some people are capable of remembering the last things written, and could therefore get right to the point and read the new information, while other people less capable of remembering the last things written have to scroll down to remember what is written. Then they complain that this is an inconvenience. If the person had bottom-posted, then everyone would have to scroll down equally. So, basically, in my opinion I don't think there is one 'right' way, and I'm not sure there's an overwhelming support of bottom-posting by geeks -- I mean, seven years is a bit of time to not notice this issue, and I've been on a lot of lists. I personally prefer to read/write top posts, why would I want to scroll down to read information I've already read? Bottom/middle posting is only useful when you have to comment on several different subjects in the same e-mail.
ps: The best way to take down the internet is to start a flamewar. On 6/23/06, RBW <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Tracy R Reed wrote: >Todd Walton wrote: > > >>The trimming part takes care of that. How long did it take you to >>scroll down to get through what I just quoted? Probably it didn't. >> >> >> > >Outlook is entirely to blame. It divides the window in half horizontally >and many users run at lower resolutions than those of us who know how to >set up our computers. So they only see a few lines of the email at a >time. A dozen quoted lines causes them to have to scroll and feel >inconvenienced. The fact that Outlook doesn't do quoting properly and >puts the cursor at the top of the email to compose a reply doesn't help >either. So many people have jumped onto the net and started doing email >in the last few years using Outlook that they do not realize that there >has already been an established way of replying to email for many years. >This has been a peeve of mine for ages, especially since a coworker at a >former job complained to my boss that I wasn't quoting my emails >"correctly" which to him was Outlook-style. > > > I always wonder what guys like that would complain about if they saw other people using the restroom... Anyway, I remember when I first got exposed to Linux, way back in the stacks and stacks of slackware floppies days, by a friend of mine who later became my boss in the university I worked at. My boss was a real thorn in the side of the C&IT (Computing and Info Tech) guys about tech issues and what the students in our college of science needed and didn't need. They got fed up with him and gave him @$70K and said, "buy your own stuff and leave us alone". So he bought a sparc10 with all the fixins, several managed switches and a couple routers and other wish list stuff. Well the first thing we did was setup sendmail and start handing out e-mail shell accounts with Pine as the MUA. The demand for these accounts went through the roof because we only handed them out to the students in our college making it necessary for other students and other colleges to try to (I'll be nice) falsify their way into an e-mail account. Now aside from the cool story of my boss and how he tilted at windmills and beat the C&IT priesthood who I actually heard with my own ears say, "Why do students need e-mail?", the interesting thing about the students was that they top posted. I never really thought about it because I will reply post in the manner the other person is used to replying. It wasn't until I joined lists like this with "real" computer types that I ever bottom posted. Nowadays, everyone but geekdom (affectionately so named ;^) top posts, probably for the reasons Tracy notes. But way back then I always thought it made sense because if I am having a conversation with someone I only need to see/refer to their latest missive to continue the conversation with them. If it is a conversation I am joining it is basically like a real verbal conversation in which you hear the latest exchange (a pun and a dirty word in this context ;^) and you have to do something *extra* to get to what has already transpired. The whole idea of bottom posting and scrolling past everything that has already been said and then to alleviate the burden of having to scroll past sometimes a ton of lines you have to engage in editing of your own previous content as well as the content of others... Well OK cool, that's the way it is done here. But I wouldn't expect anyone beyond us tech savvy people to follow along with that kind of reasoning. Especially since unlike us where we have a conscious hold on each other for conformity and awareness, the average Joe views their online behavior (and falsely so) as entirely personal, entirely a matter of their own invention and entirely confidential, Outlook behavior modification not withstanding. For the normal garden variety e-mail user bottom reply posting is all rather much when they are more comfortable with one word and one line e-mail replies (although they will yak on forever about nothing, sharing unlimited personal info while using a cell phone in circumstances that other people can't remove themselves from...). One of the interesting things that happens to me is that if I have the opportunity to respond to an e-mail from a regular Joe, and probable MS user, I try to reply by doing inline responses as we also do. Appearantly that isn't at all usual in the "real" world of e-mail because in my anecdotal experience I get return replies of wonder and amazement of how great that technique is as a way to respond in detail. I never could figure out why the psychology on this was so different between geeks and the average Joe. While I agree Outlook (never used it, never will... I would use Pine or Mutt or something first) probably made things completely the way they are now, I do remember people finding it totally natural to top post before Outlook though... And BTW I just fired up Mutt and a reply places the cursor at the top also... rbw -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
-- Nicholas Wheeler Systems Administrator Development InfoStructure -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
