Hi,
Jim - you made some good points.
We had a debate on this list a while ago about the merits of top/bottom
posting. One person described top posting as a microsoft type thing.
(I think cause microsoft applications by default start the reply as a
top posted answer).
From that debate, the clear consensus was to keep letters short. This
benefits people who insist on reading emails on bandwidth challenged
devices (cell phones, slow dialup links etc). I agree - short letters
are good - rambling letters that take an age to read are a pain.
Reading a nice coherrent logical comment is a treat. Reading someone's
nitpicking comments inside someone else's comments is a pain. Particularly
when several people have added their nitpicking comments.
On the merits of top posting vs bottom posting in a concise edited email:
I don't care. All the rants & ravings of many netizens over the last
couple of decades have not stopped/fixed the practice. So I prefer to move
on to other more interesting things. Yes, this is admitting defeat. I
cannot stop you from posting incorrectly.
Derek.
On Fri, 27 Jun 2008, Jim Cheetham wrote:
No, you have made a strawman argument.
Top-posting is not the same as writing lines upwards rather downwards :-)
Top-posting works for *some* types of conversation, bottom-posting
works for others, and quote/response for a third type. Sometimes a
mixture works best.
There is no One True Way to reply to "an email", so please everyone,
stop pretending that there is.
There *might* be One True Way to reply to messages in a specific
forum, like this mailing list (but I doubt it)
--
Derek Smithies Ph.D.
IndraNet Technologies Ltd.
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
ph +64 3 365 6485
Web: http://www.indranet-technologies.com/
