Eric Wald wrote:
Who all came up with the keen idear that bottom posting was best?
The first users of email. According to the jargon file, "This is
correct form, and until around 2000 was so universal on the Internet
that neither the term 'bottom-post' nor its antonym top-post existed."
Then again, Wikipedia makes a distinction between bottom-posting
(including the entire relevant portion of an email before your reply)
and "inline replying" or "interleaved reply" (quoting specific points
before replying to each one, as I'm doing here).
interleaving makes sense in larger emails and/or those with multiple
points. No dispute there. Use it a lot myself. I didn't address that
as most of the list posts are not that complicated (showing up in my
inbox as individual emails), at times it resembles more of a public IM
with a bit more detail, than a full blown email.
I believe this whole issue is a matter of preference.
Partly, but a significant portion is a matter of where you learned to
email. If you learned from Usenet, which was originally dominated by
Unix-based email programs and where conciseness was valued highly, you
learned to trim and interleave responses. If you learned from business,
which was originally dominated by Outlook and where completeness was
valued highly, you learned to top-post and include the entire
conversation.
I guess I should have used "most of this" instead of "this whole" to
make it fit my stance on email in general, not just lists.
Interesting thing though, when I was first using Unix (mainframes and
mini's), many of ya'all were not even born yet and/or very small rug
rats. So, I can appreciate parts of the history behind yer reply, except
the part about Outlook originally dominating the business messaging
environment. I also think they took the bad form cue from Netscrape's
default settings in their email clients ... or maybe MS just imploded on
that aspect on their own. However, I still dislike bottom posting in
emails, in many instances. It wastes a lot of time for me when I have to
process thousands of emails per day. I prefer see the reply upfront, it
it's such an email (many exceptions, like a forwarded email, a total
conversation encapsulated within the email, usenet, mailing lists, etc).
But for simple snip, trim and post where just a snippet is used, bottom
posting is a hindrance if the reply does not show up on the viewable
screen without scrolling. The only thing I detest more is html based
email; I consider it unprofessional.
But google should give the flexibility for a desired style even if and
only used for an individual message that might need to be sent
differently from the default method. I remember having an email client
that would allow me to top post or bottom post back in the mid 90's (I
don't pay that much attention to such settings nowadays). Maybe gmail
needs something along those lines, if it doesn't have such a setting
already.
For mailing lists, a consistent style tends to make things easier to
read. Particularly annoying are the posts that mix styles, meaning that
you have to jump back and forth to read it, particularly if you join the
list in the middle of a conversation. Note also that digests are much
easier to read with bottom- or interleaved posting, particularly because
top-posting tends not to add quotation characters to the quoted lines.
I normally do not read/get/browse digests, so I would miss such details.
But yer reply makes it a bit more understandable in those cases.
Hence maybe why the original death wishes posted against gmail users.
Mister Ed
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