Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2001 10:34:41 -0400 From: Brian T.Schellenberger <bts@babbleon.org> To: Chris Moline <ugly-daemon@home.com>, questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: MT: top-posting Message-ID: <01072910344102.06153@i8k.babbleon.org> In-Reply-To: <20010729080030.A41709@h24-67-61-12.lb.shawcable.net> References: <15203.62084.40909.149342@guru.mired.org> <20010729080030.A41709@h24-67-61-12.lb.shawcable.net>
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I don't agree that top-posting is always a bad idea. In general, IMHO, if you are making a broad philosophical statement (liek this one), top-posting is easiest -- the reader needn't scroll down if they can probably get the gist of what you are saying without reading all the other stuff, and by putting the most important info at the top you can skip the mail and move to the next one with a single keystroke. I hate having to page down five times before I get to some one-line response. But responding to specific points is best done in the text of the message. [more below] On Sunday 29 July 2001 10:00, Chris Moline wrote: > On Sun, Jul 29, 2001 at 06:24:52AM -0500, Mike Meyer wrote: > > I'm seeing an increase in the number of answers that "top post". That > > is, the answer is placed above the text of the question. Like > > wrapping the text of a message, this seems like a good idea at first > > How is wrapping text a bad thing?? It is very irritating to get a message > that is just one big long line. Actually, one big line is in many ways ideal because then you can get the text to wrap in whatever size window you use to display. However, I set my text to wrap becasue some mail readers, alas, don't deal well with it otherwise. > > > glance, and might actually be a local improvement. But the result of > > global adoption of such practices is to make reading - and replying - > > to email harder. To quote Greg Lehey's "How to get best results from > > FreeBSD-questions" <URL: http://www.lemis.com/questions.html#answer >: > > > > 9. Put your response in the correct place (after the text to which it > > replies). It's very difficult to read a thread of responses where each > > reply comes before the text to which it replies. I don't really agree with this advice as a global principle. Do you all like scrolling more than I do? Wouldn't it in fact be easier if everybody top-posted replies that don't require a lot of context to make sense? Isn't it a lot easier to find them replies there? Or has the old Unix horror of extra keystrokes completely gone by the wayside? > > Or has the old Unix horror of extra keystrokes completely gone by the waysid > > So, would everyone please stop top posting? > > I heartily agree. > > Sincerly, > Chris Moline > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message -- FreeBSD: If it's good enough for MIcrosoft, it's good enough for me. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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