On 1/8/21 11:25 AM, Don Cross wrote:
On Fri, Jan 8, 2021 at 11:32 AM Bruce Dubbs <bruce.du...@gmail.com <mailto:bruce.du...@gmail.com>> wrote:On 1/8/21 7:36 AM, coolnodje wrote: > > Please do not top post to the mailing list. > I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean.As a fellow gmail user, it helps to point out that Google makes it almost certain that new people will top-post. It's really not our fault. It's hard for us gmail users to notice the "..." at the bottom of the email, then to know that we are supposed to click on it, then we are supposed to go to the bottom of the newly-expanded text, and type our reply THERE. We don't even *know* we are top-posting due to the user interface Google provides.
Yes, it is a problem when using gmail via the web. Better mail clients allow you to choose. For instance, in Thunderbird, you can go to
Edit->Account Settings -> (account) Composition & Addressing and select 'When quoting, "start my reply below the quote"'.
I keep wondering if it would be possible to adjust whatever software manages these mailing lists and implement a simple anti-top-posting feature... could it automatically reformat top-posts to be bottom-posts? I am a software developer, and I hereby volunteer to help if I can. I just don't know who has the authority here to support such a change.
Top posting is fine for 1-on-1 messages. Mailing lists are a different environment. When many users are commenting and comments are posted in line to specific comments, it can get confusing when people top post to those replies.
As the footer shows, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style for a longer discussion.
Another issue is that posts should be edited to remove parts of a message that are not relevant to a reply. Unfortunately many users just blindly include everything.
-- Bruce -- http://lists.linuxfromscratch.org/listinfo/lfs-support FAQ: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/faq.html Unsubscribe: See the above information page Do not top post on this list. A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style
