From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Nov 23 13:52:10 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6FC0E16A41A for ; Fri, 23 Nov 2007 13:52:10 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from M.Apitz@oclcpica.org) Received: from mail.pica.nl (mail.pica.nl [192.87.44.30]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E6ABF13C4EE for ; Fri, 23 Nov 2007 13:52:09 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from M.Apitz@oclcpica.org) Received: from rebelion.Sisis.de ([193.31.10.34]) by mail.pica.nl with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959); Fri, 23 Nov 2007 14:53:34 +0100 Received: (from guru@localhost) by rebelion.Sisis.de (8.13.8/8.13.8/Submit) id lANDq6Xd008713; Fri, 23 Nov 2007 14:52:06 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from m.apitz@oclcpica.org) X-Authentication-Warning: rebelion.Sisis.de: guru set sender to m.apitz@oclcpica.org using -f Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2007 14:52:06 +0100 From: Matthias Apitz To: Bill Moran Message-ID: <20071123135206.GA8324@rebelion.Sisis.de> References: <31AE442CCBC1094ABC40CE85B0149F06468CE8@MAIL1.registry.otago.ac.nz> <20071123080559.eda37a95.wmoran@potentialtech.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In-Reply-To: <20071123080559.eda37a95.wmoran@potentialtech.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.2i X-Operating-System: FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE (i386) X-OriginalArrivalTime: 23 Nov 2007 13:53:34.0531 (UTC) FILETIME=[3D564930:01C82DD8] Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, Brent Jones Subject: Re: top posting (off-topic) X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: Matthias Apitz List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2007 13:52:10 -0000 El día Friday, November 23, 2007 a las 08:05:59AM -0500, Bill Moran escribió: > There are three reasons _not_ to top-post and to post inline, trimming > your response intelligently: > > 1) Top-posting does not scale up to large, complex emails. It produces > incomprehensible responses when the conversation requires more than > a yes or no answer. > 2) Stop thinking about yourself and realize that most messages read in > archives long after they were posted. Top posted messages in archives > are a lot more difficult to parse, and usually require a lot of clicking > around to get back to earlier messages, etc. > 3) RFC-1855 says so. ... I'm as well participating for *many* years in technical mailing-lists or USENET and I'm strictly against top-posting. I think this problem (that people top-post or don't even know that they top-post because they don't know what top-posting is at all) has something todo with two phenomena: - the Internet in the 90es felled into the hands of non-technical backgrounded people; ask today someone what is a RFC, for an example; Netiquette Guidelines came outdated (for the newcomers) and they don't know them or even think, if they know, that they have something todo with the plain old days of modem lines and UUCP; - many of the MUA used by unskilled people are somewhat browser-based (OutLook, webmail, ...) and don't support a power-full line editor (like vi or emacs) to assemble and/or edit the mail body; the browser just put the write-mark above the 1st line of the mail, people write their stuff and are to lazy to scroll down, delete parts or whatever; many of them don't even know how to configure their MUA to do correct nesting with >>> signs; The only (week) technical argument in favour of top-post is that mail delivered to small wire-less devices (like mobile phones, hand helds) mostly only transfer the 1st 'screen' of such mail via UMTS or whatever transport layer and only if the reader wants to scroll down the rest of the mail is aired to the device. It should be easy in mailing-lists to block mails of top-posters. matthias -- Matthias Apitz Manager Technical Support - OCLC PICA GmbH Gruenwalder Weg 28g - 82041 Oberhaching - Germany t +49-89-61308 351 - f +49-89-61308 399 - m +49-170-4527211 e - w http://www.oclcpica.org/ http://www.UnixArea.de/ b http://gurucubano.blogspot.com/