begin quoting Nicholas Wheeler as of Fri, Jun 23, 2006 at 11:44:24AM -0400: > I've been using Linux for over seven years and, until this list, I've never
You expect us to be impressed with that? > heard anyone complaining about top-posting vs bottom-posting. I think it's And you don't get around much, either. > silly to think one way is right -- regardless of your preference of client. It's about whose time you're willing to waste. Yours, or mine. Your choice tells me a lot... and it tells me that you consider me a chump to whom it isn't worth being civil. > 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. That doesn't follow. (Or make sense.) The subject line is a gross filter that is supposed to give you an idea about what the message is about; what people are capable of remembering or not is irrelevent. And what is this "scroll" nonsense? > Then they complain that this is an inconvenience. If the person had > bottom-posted, then everyone would have to scroll down equally. So, And re-read the entire conversation, again, and again, and again, jumping back and forth trying to pick out the bits that you are replying to, but didn't deign to indicate. > basically, in my opinion I don't think there is one 'right' way, and I'm not Basically, in my opinion, I think you're lazy (not in the good larry-wall sort of way, either), and defending it with "there's no right way". > sure there's an overwhelming support of bottom-posting by geeks -- I mean, There is -- among the ones worth listening to. The handful of malcontents are generally just being contrarians. > 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? That's why you're supposed to _trim_ away all the irrelevent bits. If you have to read a page of text before you get to a reply, there's still a problem. A big problem. > Bottom/middle posting > is only useful when you have to comment on several different subjects in the > same e-mail. If you don't comment on several different subjects, you should TRIM AWAY ALL THE REST. Trim what's irrelevent. If you quoted it, you must have quoted it for a reason, therefore, I, the reader, can be expected to read all if it. Interspersing your reply lets you, the writer, easily identify (and thus, delete) all of the irrelevent bits. EVEN IF YOU TOP POST, you should do this. Otherwise, the quoted material just grows, and grows, and grows, and dwarfs everything of any interest. Sure, disk is cheap, and bandwidth is cheap, and screens are bigger.... but some conversations go for MONTHS. (I deleted 110 lines of un-referencable quoting... I would have more than _doubled_ the length of this reply had I not done so.) Additionally, if you top post, you should take the extra effort to reply as if to a letter... and introduce each point with a reminder about what you are replying to. "You said 'X, Y, and Z', and I wish to address Z..." (Go read Lewis Carroll's advice on letter-writing sometime.) > ps: The best way to take down the internet is to start a flamewar. Oh, baloney. I figured out that was crap long before I'd been on the 'Net for seven years. What use is bragging about how long you've been on the 'Net if you just demonstrate that you haven't learned anything? [110 lines deleted] *chooooooonnnnng* -- _ |\_ \| -- KPLUG-List@kernel-panic.org http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
