Top Post vs Bottom Post (was: Fedora-18 -- how to install?)

[Alejandro Imass]

On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 4:49 PM, Chris F.A. Johnson <chris-E7bvbYbpR6jSUeElwK9/Pw at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On Tue, 5 Mar 2013, Ansar Mohammed wrote:
>
>> FWIW, you can complain all you like. I don't think anyone is going to
>> change their email client's configuration.
>
>
>    Is there an email client that doesn't let you put your reply
>    wherever you want?
>

AFAIK a lot of smartphone MUAs don't allow this. Even GMail's Android
client only until recently allows in-line replies. I still have a
Nexus One with CyanogenMod and the GMail client there does not allow
bottom or in-line replies. So I only answer business-related or
personal emails because __that particular scenario__ the expectation
is in fact, top-posting.

Anyway, the point of this discussion is that __on technical mailing
lists__, especially those related to Unix and Linux expect you to
follow RFC1855 and AFAIK it has not superseded by any other RFC so
until that happens, those are the official guidelines for mail and
mailing lists, period (regardless if it's from 1995). Furthermore, it
seems quite awkward to talk about Outlook on a Linux mailing list
because that is in fact Off-Topic.

The RFC explicitly states:

Page 4: (on mail in general)

Be brief without being overly terse.  When replying to a message,
include enough original material to be understood but no more. It is
extremely bad form to simply reply to a message by including all the
previous message: edit out all the irrelevant material.

Page 8: (specifically for mailing lists)

If you are sending a reply to a message or a posting be sure you
summarize the original at the top of the message, or include just
enough text of the original to give a context.  This will make sure
readers understand when they start to read your response. Since
NetNews, especially, is proliferated by distributing the postings from
one host to another, it is possible to see a response to a message
before seeing the original.  Giving context helps everyone.  But do
not include the entire original!

Best,

-- 
Alejandro Imass
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