[arch-general] Top Posting Revisited

[Raghavendra D Prabhu]

* On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 07:47:03AM +0530, gt <codered12 at gmail.com> wrote:
>Hello folks, i'll probably get flamed for reviving a very controversial,
>yet consistently brought up topic.
>
>I have seen a similar thread last year, and every other day, someone
>points out to someone that top posting is bad.
>
>I was off the list for a while, and now when i came back, the story is
>still the same.
>
>I know top posting is bad, and i too sometimes preach people to avoid
>it. But from what i've seen, most of the times, people don't bother, or
>simply don't know what's wrong.
>
>Instead of having top-posting related mails in every thread, there
>should be a better way out.
>
>I suggest all of the top-posting haters should including one of these
>links or similar in their signatures.
>
>http://idallen.com/topposting.html
>
>http://www.caliburn.nl/topposting.html
>
>Also, we can have a forum and mailing list etiquette drive for a few
>days, with mention in the arch linux news, the mailing list, and setting
>it as the topic in the irc channel also.
>
>I know this is probably overkill, but it'll probably inform a lot more
>people about these issues than some stray posts in every other thread.
>
>PS: Since arch is always ahead of the other distros in adopting new
>stuff and bringing about change, let's be the first ones to spread some
>netiquette.

I am all for bottom posting if it helps the reader of my mail.
But,

     * For instance, I use t-prot to fold the reply, so that I don't have
       keep scrolling to read the reply I already know (because mails are
       threaded), but I may be outside or using something which doesn't
       fold as well as this, in those circumstances top posting helps.

     * Regarding the context that people seem to be so enthusiastically ebullient about
       (even on the links you posted), tell me how much of context do you
       see in mails of today ? 1 ? 2 ? I followed this whole thread and I
       don't see more than that. Do you know why ?  
       
       Because people have better clients which allows one to conceive
       the structure of conversation (with threads and thread tree to
       visualize it) and also, read them well -- try reading a mail with
       a previous context of 10 in same mail and let me know. 

     * Following my previous point, the link which you so fervently posted also states --
         "
         This is even more tiresome than scrolling and with the unreliable nature
         of Usenet (and even email is inevitably unreliable), the previous
         message in the discussion can be simply unavailable. 
         "
         This is *not* true today.


I don't think this top or bottom posting matters to me for I use a sane
client. But what matters to me most is a post and bunch of morons (not
your fault) replying stating people to be forcefully unsubscribed and/or
rebuked if they top post.  

I understand that people should bottom post but to
enforce it won't be that easy; though you can write script to process
your incoming mails and make all bottom posted, shouldnt be hard with
procmail (given that all use markers when replying).
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