[GLLUG] Thursday's Meeting?

[Richard Houser]

Thomas Hruska wrote:

> There is no argument:  Top-posting is NOT proper netiquette - especially 
> for mass mailing lists.  Read RFC1855.  Top-posting is in violation of 
> the proper use of e-mail according to the Internet Engineering Task 
> Force (IETF - the people who make and maintain Internet standards like 
> HTTP, SMTP, POP3, IMAP, DNS, TCP, UDP, IP, etc.)
> 
> http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1855

I read the whole thing and strongly disagree with your interpretation of 
the RFC.

First, that RFC neither claims that top-posting is improper etiquette 
nor that bottom posting is proper.  Instead, it describes in-line 
(interleaved) posting, which is what I'm doing now.  Note where the RFC 
specifically mentions including summary or context information.  For 
completely new comments, the RFC is silent on where that should go.

Second, that RFC is dated 1995.  Things change and future RFCs are 
sometimes, not always released to update things.  With an RFC that old 
covering something (user expectations) that changes almost as fast as 
the technology, I think it's a mistake to just assume everything is 
immediately relevant.  Back in 1995 or thereabouts, threading was a 
relatively new concept for most mail clients, and the feature was far 
from standard.  Before threading, it was fairly difficult to consolidate 
a variety of messages in a large, wide thread of conversation and a user 
had to do that manually.  In-line posts were even more important then 
(but still important today).

> Almost every mass mailing list I subscribe to, with the exception of 
> this one and a couple others, has the implicit standard of bottom 
> posting.  A few of those lists take it to the extreme and those that 
> don't bottom post get put on probationary moderation until they do 
> bottom post.  Becomes a pretty powerful incentive for those people who 
> want to quickly get answers to questions.

I've just looked at my eleven primary mailing lists and only one has any 
substantial percentage of bottom posting.  That one list has something 
like 30-40 percent of posts using bottom posting, but those posts are 
mostly from a small number of very active posters.  In addition, the 
Wikipedia link you referenced states that top-posting is more common on 
mailing lists and that some mail clients don't even download the quoted 
text by default when using top posting (another plus).

Perhaps your experiences are due to the type of lists you subscribe to? 
I'm mostly subscribed to development lists or lists related to open 
source software or compatibility.  None of those lists to have any major 
representation of Windows or non-technical users.