17 Jan
2021
17 Jan
'21
3:28 a.m.
On Saturday 16 January 2021 17:25:05 Steven D'Aprano via tde-users wrote:
Just a gentle reminder about bottom-quoting without
trimming, which
combines all the disadvantages of top-posting with none of the
advantages.
The message I replied to included *nine* levels of quoting,
approximately 200 lines worth, followed by a single response at the very
end. I had to page through six screens to get to the author's comment.
Please everyone, remember to trim your quoting to managable levels, and
to use inline posting between paragraphs. (Some people call that "bottom
posting" as you respond at the bottom of each paragraph, but that term
is more correctly used for adding your own text at the very bottom of
the entire quoted message. Which is worse for the reader than
top-posting.)
(I've done my best to remove any threading information from this email,
as I don't want to point the finger at any specific person.)
This thought has occurred to me before, but anyway, here goes ...
How about we just dispense with top posting altogether? About 5% of those who
post here don't bother or don't remember not to top post; probably they are
new to the list.
It's annoying to most of the readers of the list, but for their different
reasons. Some of us do our best not to top post, then others don't follow the
rule and mess it up, anyway. Others bottom post, but don't trim the glut of
replies on top of replies that accumulates in some threads, which makes it
like an archaeological dig sometimes to find the tiny nuggets that are worth
reading.
If we just all went to top posting, because it's normal for most emails, and
habit, then we wouldn't worry so much about it. It is no harder to read the
replies backwards rather than forwards, since it's usually messy, anyway.
Furthermore, I find that I have started bottom-posting by habit in my *other*
[non-TDE mailing list] emails, which throws off some of my non-TDE
recipients, who think I have mistakenly hit RESEND or whatever, and sometimes
don't scroll down to find what I have written.
All this could be eliminated if we just top-posted. Then the rule (observed or
not) could be: Please trim the extra stuff that has accumulated at the
bottom. But if they forget, most readers won't be bothered much, as they
won't get that far.
Bill