[Tfug] Netiquette police: top-posting

[Claude Rubinson]

On Thu, Nov 03, 2005 at 04:49:41PM -0700, johngalt wrote:
> From: "Claude Rubinson" <rubinson at u.arizona.edu>

> > I just want to remind people not to do this and, furthermore, prod
> > people into taking the time to quote only those portions of the
> > message that your replying to, providing context for your reply
> > and keeping messages to a manageable length.
> See for example, if I were to point out in the example above that
> using the word *your* instead of the proper contraction *you're*
> (which means *you are*) is poor practice, that would be a flame,
> subject to scorn and ridicule by those (non-mean-spirited people)
> who tolerate and encourage stupidity.

Note how effective in-line posting is for pointing out others'
foibles!  If you had top-posted, everyone would have had to scroll
down through the message to see my error.  :)

> Nevertheless, after further consideration I really don't care
> anymore either way.

FWIW, I don't generally fuss about it either.  But it's been happening
a lot lately so I figured I put a gentle reminder out there.  And, as
we've seen, some people weren't even aware of the issue.  People can
continue to top-post if they choose.  I'm certainly not a Nazi when it
comes to things like this.  But at least they'll be making a conscious
decision, which is always a good thing.

> Regardless, the bottom poster forces one to review all the relevant
> thread again, which is a waste of time, if you have followed the
> thread well, unless you skip to the bottom. However, if you need to
> put things in context after skipping down to the bottom, you have to
> back up, which is in reverse to the order in which people normally
> read text.

Agreed.  That's why I recommended ample trimming.  Provide enough of
the original message for context and strip everything out.

> One thing I would recommend after saying all of this is that you
> should use an email app. or reader that inserts ">" for quoted text.

Agreed.  Some people even take advantage of Emacs' prefix mode to
uniquely identify every line.  It's a great way to clarify deeply
nested messages.

C.