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Date:      Fri, 23 Nov 2007 12:12:32 +0100 (CET)
From:      Oliver Fromme <olli@lurza.secnetix.de>
To:        freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG, fgaughan@gmail.com
Subject:   Re: top posting (off-topic)
Message-ID:  <200711231112.lANBCW1P004569@lurza.secnetix.de>
In-Reply-To: <b346f5340711230103u68567d76ta92ff68eb5310fcc@mail.gmail.com>

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Fintan Gaughan wrote:
 > Well i am top posting cos gmail says so :-)

gmail does not force you to top-post.  (If it did, I would
propose to ban gmail addresses from the mailing lists.)

 > From what i have been told that news group you don't top post but in
 > mail list such as this one its ok to top post.

There's no such difference between news groups and mailing
lists, at least from a user perspective.

In fact, I do read the FreeBSD mailing lists via an NNTP
gateway which stores them as news groups.  I'm using a
newsreader client to read them (ports/news/tin) instead
of an email client.

 > Correct me if i am wrong but you can configure newsgroup reader to
 > scroll to bottom or post where with email clients you have to scroll
 > down to each one.

I'm sorry but that's nonsense.  It depends entirely on
the kind of client software you're using, and how it is
configured.  It's _not_ a newsgroup vs. email thing.

Apart from that, you're supposed to delete those parts
of the quote that are irrelevant to your reply.  You
should keep only those parts that are required to
understand the context.  If you adhere to that rule,
then the quoted text is small enough that having to
scroll down is not a real issue.

Those people who do not top-post, but don't delete any
quoted text in a reasonable way either, aren't doing it
right either.  Normally you should _not_ see multiple
pages of quoted text with tons of indentation.  That's
almost as bad as top-posting.

In ancient times, everybody was posting correctly (i.e.
with minimal but sufficient quoting, and writing the
reply below).  I guess because it was the most natural
thing to do it that way, both for the person writing it
and for the people reading it.  The problem with top-
posting started to appear when certain graphical clients
started to become widely used which put the cursor at
the top above the fully quote text, and users were too
lazy to move down, delete irrelevant parts of the quote
and write the answers below.  Instead they just typed
their text right away and klicked the "send" button.

For example, almost the entire full quote that you you
had below your reply was completely useless, confusing
and a waste of space and bandwidth.

Best regards
   Oliver

-- 
Oliver Fromme, secnetix GmbH & Co. KG, Marktplatz 29, 85567 Grafing b. M.
Handelsregister: Registergericht Muenchen, HRA 74606,  Geschäftsfuehrung:
secnetix Verwaltungsgesellsch. mbH, Handelsregister: Registergericht Mün-
chen, HRB 125758,  Geschäftsführer: Maik Bachmann, Olaf Erb, Ralf Gebhart

FreeBSD-Dienstleistungen, -Produkte und mehr:  http://www.secnetix.de/bsd

"In My Egoistical Opinion, most people's C programs should be indented
six feet downward and covered with dirt."
        -- Blair P. Houghton



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