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Re: [Networker] Top-posting and quoting

2008-01-28 19:02:06
Subject: Re: [Networker] Top-posting and quoting
From: Davina Treiber <Davina.Treiber AT PEEVRO.CO DOT UK>
To: NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2008 23:57:44 +0000 
Tim Mooney wrote:


Call me elitist if you wish, but I would place more weight on the opinions
of the people that answer the preponderance of the questions.  The term
you once used for those people was "NetWorker List Superstars".
As someone who has posted a few times on this list in the past, I will weigh in with my opinion. Personally I detest top posting. I think a readable reply to a discussion should take the form of one or more responses to points made by the poster whose message you are replying to. All the rest of the chaff should be disposed of.
However - this really depends on the tools available. Most decent mail clients make in-line replies quite simple, by automatically quoting the previous message. This includes sophisticated quality mail clients such as Thunderbird and many others, and also some old text based favourites such as elm, pine, and good old mailx.
There is one abomination of a proprietary mail client which makes in-line posting extremely difficult, and virtually forces the user to top-post. Unfortunately this particular mail client is widely used due to it being about the only client compatible with a widely used proprietary backend mail server, as well as being the default mail client for a great many users who simply don't realise that there are better options available, many of which are free. When I am forced to use this mail client I find myself top-posting also, I must say that the worst version of this software is the web version - which I am also forced to use some of the time. 

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