From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Nov 28 12:22:29 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from guru.mired.org (okc-65-31-203-60.mmcable.com [65.31.203.60]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 4481C37B416 for ; Wed, 28 Nov 2001 12:22:25 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 8013 invoked by uid 100); 28 Nov 2001 20:22:23 -0000 From: Mike Meyer MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <15365.18303.901189.957520@guru.mired.org> Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 14:22:23 -0600 To: Rahul Siddharthan Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Email Etiquette on this list In-Reply-To: <63173733@toto.iv> X-Mailer: VM 6.90 under 21.1 (patch 14) "Cuyahoga Valley" XEmacs Lucid X-face: "5Mnwy%?j>IIV\)A=):rjWL~NB2aH[}Yq8Z=u~vJ`"(,&SiLvbbz2W`;h9L,Yg`+vb1>RG% *h+%X^n0EZd>TM8_IB;a8F?(Fb"lw'IgCoyM.[Lg#r\ Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Rahul Siddharthan types: > Mike Meyer said on Nov 28, 2001 at 13:05:10: > > Rahul Siddharthan types: > > > Now, the right answer: use your judgement (as always). If you're > > > replying to specific points, don't top-post. If you're making a > > > broader reply and there's no reason to make the reader wade through > > > previous writing first, then by all means top-post. Why not? > > In that case, why bother sending the previous writing *at all*? > To provide a general context? Email is quick enough that if it's a broad reply, they probably have it. If not - it's in the archives. > I agree it's not always appropriate (in fact it usually isn't) and > it's irritating when the bulk of the message is an unedited quote of > someone's previous message (but this is equally irritating when quoted > on top, so it's a different issue). I don't like rigid rules like > "never do this" on matters of etiquette. Actually, the only thing I think is a "never do this" thing is to dump the unedited text of the message, whether on the top or the bottom. Once you're at the point of editing it, you might as well turn it into a coherent discussion. Even if it's just a broad, general reply - someone may want to reply to that. Might as well get them off to a good start while you're at it. Of course, if you're talking about the message instead of replying to it, that's a different thing entirely. http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Q: How do you make the gods laugh? A: Tell them your plans. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message