Nope, there aren't any that do it 'right'.  Nor is there even near universal
definition of what 'right' is.  And certainly no tools that do it 'right'.
Just lots of passion (a/k/a hot air) surrounding the topic.

Top posting is evil -- google for it.  Except that it's easy and most of us
do it.

(Oh, and BTW, long paragraphs without line breaks are evil too :-) )

Besides, you can argue that if you REMEMBER the context, top posting makes
it easier to read the replies.

The reason for leaving the stuff in there is to refresh the memory about
things that happened days/weeks/100s of messages ago.

So you see, those are conflicting goals.


The problem w/ >s is that as it nests, it gets very hard to read, even if
you do some trimming and don't have the wrap the wrapped line problem.

> > > > You're an idiot
> > > am not
> > Are too
> Pox on both of you
Shaddup. You're an idiot too

Is pretty clear,  But if each of those are 15 lines passionately defending
some obscure point, it's impossible to follow.


Personally: I'm bad - I usually top post w/ some trimming (my <snip />'s).
It's easier for me and is the way my mail client works.

But if there's a long discussion, I'll do a "see in-line" and then reply in
line.

And if I think it's important to read the context first, I'll reply at the
end...




Re the RE:  There are plenty of mail clients that don't add the RE
automatically (or as you note, do it localized), and also lots that don't
pick up on the Re as the same thread.

For my 2 cents, the two most important cases are the mailing list archive:

http://lists.ntop.org/pipermail/ntop/2004-April/thread.html

(But here, the Re: breaks the threading:

[Ntop] A step by step guide?   Nicholas Orr
  [Ntop] A step by step guide?   Stanley Hopcroft
    [Ntop] A step by step guide?   Nicholas Orr
[Ntop] Re: A step by step guide?   Jan Niederhumer
  [Ntop] A step by step guide?   Nicholas Orr
    [Ntop] A step by step guide?   Burton M. Strauss III
      [Ntop] A step by step guide?   Nicholas Orr
      [Ntop] A step by step guide?   Nicholas Orr

and Gmane:

http://news.gmane.org/gmane.linux.ntop.general/cutoff=8025



Let's see in Outlook, most of this can be adjusted

Tools | Options | Mail Format tab | Settings --- line wrap
Tools | Options | Preferences tab | Mail format options --- quoting

But not really with any intelligence.  Of course the same thing can be said
of all of the mail clients.  Interestingly enough, there's an RFC I read
about yesterday that adds some kind of thread header so that you can change
the subject each time and still be threaded.  But NO client supports it.
Don't remember the RFC#...


-----Burton


> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of
> Nicholas Orr
> Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2004 10:10 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: RE: [Ntop] A step by step guide?
>
>
> Burton
>
> All right, got the response I was after "net-etiquette" see I haven't come
> across this (in this detail), thanks for explaining it.  I realise there
> are more then MS email clients out there (I've used about 7 others
> Linux/win).  I just wanted to know what's the "right" way to do it and if
> the ">" all over the place was just because that's the way it is done or
> misconfigured email clients.  Well I can't figure out how to stop outlook
> sticking in all the extra line breaks with ">" prefixing every line :/ Do
> any email clients out there do it right? Cause yours doesn't appear to do
> it right either. . . . Also since this is a mailing-list wouldn't we just
> leave out the numerous other messages and just write a direct reply to the
> email we are reading then you can sort your email so you can read each
> message "like water" and not have to read 10 lines for 5 words . . . The
> ">" thing seems a little floored to me due to the fact people don't care
> that their email client isn't able to format the messages properly. I'd
> rather just start with the last message in the email and read my way up.
> Much easier to read imo. And if I'm keeping track of a particular
> discussion, like am here with "A step by step guide", I would much prefer
> to read the response rather then sit here trying to decipher inline/bottom
> of message/buggered ">" indented text. . Of course just my opinion. . .
> (like seriously how easy is it to just read this reply at the top instead
> of having to scroll all the way to the bottom, or where the current reply
> starts, might even be one of those inline responses that are just
> tricky to
> read??)
>
> As for the "RE:" thing, I don't think it is windows-centric, that's where
> it usually goes, from my experience that's where its always been. Web mail
> (hotmail (as I recall hotmail use to run Unix machines), yahoo,
> squielmail,
> mbox.com.au, Netscape, ekno, mail.com, etc) Email clients
> (Outlook, Eudora,
> Mozilla, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, etc), even all the replies
> I've seen
> come in so far from this mailing list (minus the one I'm
> complaining about)
> have the "RE:" at the beginning of the subject.  That's why I brought that
> one up.  Also I know Germany I think don't use "RE:" they use "AWT:" but
> its still at the beginning. . . As for paying, exact format, Outlook takes
> care of the format, I was simply asking if "RE:" could be kept at the
> beginning of the subject instead of being moved in 1 word. . . Seem
> "net-etiquette" to have the "RE:" at the beginning . . . .
>

<snip />


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