Fedora-18 -- how to install?

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Tue, Mar 05, 2013 at 12:34:28PM -0500, Bob Jonkman wrote:
> I read every message in the TLUG list.  As I read and delete each
> message, it is far better to have the new content at the top, where it
> is immediately visible.  I've already read the quoted reply text
> contained in the current message (because I just finished reading the
> previous message), so there's no need to repeat it to provide context. 
> But keeping that quoted reply text is still important in case I want to
> save that message independently of the message thread, so don't just
> reply with an otherwise blank message, but keep the previous
> conversation below your reply.

So a week later I read this, and I then wonder "what the hell is this
about?".  Now I have to scroll down, guess what you are refering to,
and then find out where I got to up here.

> Bottom posting is especially obnoxious for people who use screen
> readers.  They can't just visually skip over the previous reply text,
> they have to sit through an entire recitation, even when they've just
> heard it in the previous message. Yes, there's "skip to end", but that's
> prone to missing interspersed replies.

What the heck is a screen reader?

> Interspersing your replies with the previous message is useful if you're
> replying to only a small portion of the previous message. In that case,
> copy the portion of the message you're replying to at the top of your
> message, write your reply below it, and then keep the entire original
> message below that,
> possibly with duplicated portions.

Actually is is always useful, so that you can tell what the reply
is about.

> In today's world the argument of wasting bandwidth by including the
> orginal message is no longer valid.  Have a look at the raw, unformatted
> message -- I'll bet the message headers (with list headers, anti-spam
> headers, DKIM headers, and the chain of received headers) is often
> larger than the content of the message.  And anyone who's ever listened
> to a podcast or watched a YouTube video has plenty of bandwidth, and no
> cause to complain about using few extra KB to include the full reply text.

The argument has at no point been about wasted bandwidth.  It has been
about having things in a logical order and context for the reply.

> And finally, I just want to voice the observation that all the
> complaints I ever see about top posting vs. bottom posting are
> invariably started by bottom-posters complaining about top posting. 
> People who top-post never complain about the bottom-posters or
> interspersers.  Why is that?

Because most top-posters often know they are wrong and are just too
lazy to deal with their broken client.  Perhaps most don't care and are
just busy forwarding the latest joke email to all the people they know.
I have no idea.  None of them have ever had a valid argument presented
for top posting being a good idea other than in business situations
where you might want to be able to forward an entire conversation to a
new person without having to dig up all the other messages.  For mailing
lists that isn't an issue, and generally there is an archive you can
point a person at instead which will me much easier to follow and read
than the horrible top posted conversation.

-- 
Len Sorensen
--
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