[GTALUG] email etiquette.

[Giles Orr]

On 15 March 2016 at 23:44, William Park <opengeometry at yahoo.ca> wrote:
> If you're replying to the whole email, or need to maintain chronological
> order (such as following up on your own post with "Oh, by the way..."),
> then top post.  Like I'm doing here.
>
> On Tue, Mar 15, 2016 at 04:02:34PM -0400, Alvin Starr wrote:
>>
>> Hugh Redelmeier posted a message to the list about my posting replies at the
>> top of messages.
>>
>> We have had a bit of a discussion offline about this but Hugh suggested we
>> take it back to the list and see what the feelings of others are.
>>
>> My position is that posting at the top is most efficient and the easiest for
>> the reader.

Of those who've responded to this thread, we seem to be pretty evenly
split.  I really don't care whether you top- or bottom-post - but I'm
in favour of trimming and would love to have consistency so I know
where I'm going to find responses.  I'm bottom-posting because that's
the official rule on this list (and it doesn't work well because now
we're non-sequential after William's top-post ... thus the desire for
consistency).  Sometimes interspersed makes sense as you respond to
separate points.

But here's the problem: people are going to do whatever the hell they
want, and/or whatever's the most convenient.  GMail, one of the
largest email providers in the world, assumes you're going to top-post
and NOT trim, so that's what it's easiest to do if you're using GMail.
I have to fight it to do it this way - I'm okay with that, but a lot
of people won't bother, and should they really have to?

So what are you going to do about it?  Apply a
three-strikes-you're-out rule?  I don't think so: booting people from
the list over top-/bottom-/interspersed is way too Draconian, and long
arguments (which I admit I'm only adding to) over which it should be
still won't stop people doing what they want unless you apply
ridiculously over-the-top policing.  So ...

My suggestion is to let it go.  Make bottom-posting "recommended" and
just accept that we live in an imperfect world.

-- 
Giles
http://www.gilesorr.com/
gilesorr at gmail.com