Top posting

[Bob Jonkman]

Thomas writes:
> The response of the top/HTML posters [...] are not arguments in favour of using either
> methods on _this mailing list_.

I don't recall that there is a published standard for posting to _this
mailing list_.  There are rules in the footer (which is hidden in most
MIME messages) which instructs us to use no HTML and to wrap our lines
at 80, and it has a link to the subscription web page
http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists  which also has no instructions on
top- bottom- or middle-posting.  So it seems that the mailing list
administrators expect us to use our best judgement in that regard,
without imposing a set style on us.


BTW, the best reason for top-posting that I've seen was given by a
friend who uses text-to-speech software to listen to his e-mail. He said:

> Those of us who read e-mail with speech want to get to the new information,
> with as little time as possible waisted listening to quotes which we have
> already heard several times.
> 
> A fall back strategy is to dump the speech buffer, go to the end of the post,
> and search back for the last > and listen from there.
> It is easy to dump the speech buffer when the quotes are last, but not possible
> to scroll to the beginning of the new comments when they are last.

His signature block?

> If you quote me, please put your comments first.
> I have already listened to mine.

So, in the interests of accessibility I've been top-posting ever since.
Sometimes I'll include a brief snippet at the top for context (as I did
here), and I also leave the entire quoted text intact below my reply so
that anyone seeing this message in isolation from the thread can still
follow along.  But most people have been following the thread all along,
and don't need to see the whole thing again at the beginning.

--Bob.


On 13-05-29 09:44 AM, Thomas Milne wrote:
> On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 1:43 PM, Jamon Camisso <jamon.camisso at utoronto.ca>wrote:
> 
>> On 28/05/13 12:08 PM, Stewart C. Russell wrote:
>>> It is with the professional set. You can send and receive it on Outlook,
>>> Blackberry, iPhone, OS X Mail (if you're a “creative”) or Android (if
>>> you're an engineer). That's 999‰ of the business ecosystem.
>>
>> This list is distinctly *not* driven by the business ecosystem, or the
>> legal, or the xyz system. It is a technical mailing list for Linux based
>> discussions, for and by people who ought to know enough to adhere to a
>> common standard of discourse. After all that's what computers and
>> operating systems are, standardized computational tools, from CPU
>> architectures, memory allocation best practices, up to UTF8 email
>> messages and beyond.
>>
>> HTML email, and top-posting on this list are terrible scourges, that
>> should be dealt with in a most severe manner the likes of which Lennart
>> has only hinted at in passing.
>>
>> /dev/null is too warm and inviting a place for such emails :p
>>
>> Why such a strident opinion you might ask? Simply put, HTML email and
>> not taking a moment to reply in-line or bottom post encourages laziness.
>> Most insidious is that the default message composition format and
>> behaviour in many clients encourages this laziness.
>>
>> Granted, like any tool, email can (and should be!) be used by anyone in
>> any manner that they see fit. However, within the context of this list,
>> one should use the tool in a manner that reflects an understanding of
>> the context within which a detail oriented discussion is taking place,
>> and the intended audience of said discussion.
>>
>> To draw upon McLuhan: if the medium is the message (HTML being the
>> medium for the contents of an email), then the message as I see it on a
>> regular basis consists of mostly badly formed syntactic messes of
>> irrelevant divs, fonts and formatting, the sheer bulk of which largely
>> outweigh the actual meaningful content of said message. Signatures are
>> infinitely worse for the value that they impart to a discussion and they
>> deserve their own special place in email hell.
>>
>> Given the subject of this list is highly technical at times, it makes
>> sense to be clear and technical with one's formatting, language, and in
>> using meaningful structures to organize one's ideas. This approach is
>> useful in that it maintains some semblance of logical coherence across
>> multiple highly technical posts (at times), and also maps nicely onto
>> threaded email clients that reflect said structure on a macro-level.
>>
>> I'll be the first to admit that I never live up to that standard of
>> communication on this list, or any other. But it doesn't mean that I
>> ought to be lazy and not try.
>>
>>> Don't forget Postel's Law, as enshrined in RFC1122: “Be liberal in what
>>> you accept, and conservative in what you send”.
>>
>> A key tenant of all good writing is knowing one's audience. Postel's Law
>> makes for a useful comparison that maps nicely to this discussion:
>>
>> Admitting the premise that we ought to be liberal in what we choose to
>> accept, say on this list a free flowing exchange of ideas between
>> interested parties; it follows that in participating in said exchange we
>> ought to be conservative in the manner in which we choose to express our
>> thoughts, for the aforementioned reasons of maintaining technical
>> clarity, logical coherence, and consideration of others.
>>
>>
> I think you mean 'tenet', but otherwise I 100% agree.
> 
> This is sarcasm --> Yes, when I read the list in GMail, I have to click
> 'Reply', and then I have to click to unhide the quoted text, and then I
> have to scroll down to where I can bottom post. Same when I'm using my
> phone, and then it's twice as difficult.
> 
> Oh, the humanity. The woe is beyond my ability to bear it. <-- Sarcasm
> 
> Seriously, that is pretty much the other side of it isn't it? Really, what
> it comes down to is some people are saying, very politely "Please, if you
> are using this list here is a set of rules that have always made it more
> pleasant for _everyone_ to participate."
> 
> The response of the top/HTML posters: "I don't feel like it.", and "this is
> the way big shot lawyers do it" are not arguments in favour of using either
> methods on _this mailing list_. The immaturity is really unbecoming of
> supposedly educated people. It's like those American tourists who go to
> another country and get upset when they don't speak 'Merican.
> 
--
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