Re: Top posting (a different point of view)

From: Michael Z Daryabeygi (mzd_at_sligowebworks.com)
Date: 06/10/05

  • Next message: David Jardine: "Re: Sudden constant spoofing of my address" 
    Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 17:56:04 -0400
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org

    I think that one of my personal strengths is my ability to objectively
    listen to both sides of an argument. But as much as I try, I can't
    understand bottom posters.
    How are you reading lists? I use an email client (thunderbird). When I
    read a thread, I start at the beginning. Sometimes interleaved posts
    are useful if there are many points. Otherwise I have no problem
    following a thread of top posts.
    No one leaves the entire thread intact as one reply follows another. So
    I think the argument of context is bogus. Sometimes you just have to
    look back through the thread, but if you have been following the thread,
    you just read the new posts and it doesn't matter if it is at the
    beginning or the end. The new post is more important and therefore
    should come first.
    If you can scroll down to read a new post, why can't you scroll down to
    find the context when you are confused? Why do you always want to
    scroll down when you could just scroll down in the rare instance of
    having missed something?
    Bottoms are just trying to impose Victorian-esque social protocols on a
    free-form medium. Give it up!

    Olle Eriksson wrote:
    > On Friday 10 June 2005 17.46, Roger B.A. Klorese wrote:
    >
    >>Joe Potter wrote:
    >>
    >>>That, of course, is the main point you made. I put all this in the lap
    >>>of Bill Gates --- the miserable ass. He is never happy unless he is
    >>>destroying some standard and replacing it with crap of some kind.
    >>
    >>Outlook does it this way not to be contrary, but for an obvious reason:
    >>it works better for the people who use it.
    >>
    >>If you're involved in a discussion, and you're tracking it all --
    >>because if you don't you're fired -- you want to see the most
    >>up-to-date addition to the discussion, and for the 5% of the time you
    >>need reminding, you can scroll down. The immediate previous bit will
    >>probably remind you, and if not, the bit before that, etc. It's much
    >>more useful for that sort of discussion than bottom-posting. And I'm
    >>not speaking as a Windows-brainwashed suit -- I've been using Unix
    >>tools since 1984 and email since 1975.
    >
    >
    > More importantly, I think it would be difficult to use bottom-posting with
    > html mail or rtf text or whatever it is called. And while plain text is
    > better in most situations, I have to admit there are situations where
    > formatted text can be useful. For example, sometimes you want to include
    > an image at a certain position in the e-mail, underline, make text bold,
    > color a certain text, include links without cluttering the text with long
    > http addresses. I use that when I paste code snippets and colored code
    > diffs, include links to defect reports etc in my daily work. And I
    > suppose we shouldn't forget all the other non-technical people who want
    > to format their e-mails with background images and fancy type faces.
    > Anyway, finding a technical solution that allows that to be combined with
    > bottom-posting would probably be difficult to implement, although I would
    > love to see it. Sadly Lotus Notes doesn't seem to handle it very well,
    > same as Outlook and the like.
    >
    > 

    -- 
~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`
Michael Z Daryabeygi
Database Applications Developer
Sligo Computer Services Co-op
www.sligowebworks.com
301.270.9673 x 304
~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`~,~`
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