[GLLUG] Thursday's Meeting?

Richard Houser rick at divinesymphony.net
Fri May 18 18:14:44 EDT 2007


Mike Rambo wrote:

> Which inconveniences how? You have to go down to see what the reply is 
> replying to anyway.

With modern email clients, you don't need to scroll all the way down 
with top posting.  That's what the threading features are for. 
Threading has been a standard feature of email clients since at least 
the late 1990s, but likely quite a bit earlier.

> And you lose the capacity to make comments follow specific conversation 
> elements.

In my opinion, and even the RFC that was mentioned, you should "be sure 
you summarize the original at the top of the message, or include just 
enough text of the original to give a context."  That's a description of 
in-line posting, not bottom posting.

The problem with in-line posting is that it's not always practical to 
use.  When you have something to add that doesn't directly relate to 
something that was said previously in that thread, but is still relevant 
to the conversation, it needs to go either before, or after the previous 
comments.  Technically, you can usually leave the previous context off 
completely in such cases, but it can be left in the message as a 
convenience at the cost of transmission size.  Placing it at the top 
incurs this cost plus wastes the user's time with irrelevant content in 
the common case.

> Top posting certainly expresses no concern for those who come after the 
> fact (days, months, or years later) with no immediate knowledge of the 
> conversation thread. That can be a nightmare to untangle.

Actually, top posting is MOST valuable to such people, as otherwise they 
would see the same content over and over again while trying to catch up 
on a given thread of conversation.  Anyone actively following the thread 
will only have their time wasted a couple messages at a time, but these 
individuals have to bypass the exact same segments dozens, maybe 
hundreds of times during the catch up.


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