Chen Xiao Fan wrote: > Changed it to [OT] and let's continue there. Ok! ;-) As long as we don't drive everyone crazy. > Let me re-iterate my point. > > 1) I think context posting is the best if it can be easily be done. > However it is not. I do it on virtually every reply I send. I have my clients set to text-only (because HTML and RTF are rarely that useful), and I also set the client to quote the original reply -- doesn't matter where the cursor is after I hit reply... I just click at the area I want to reply to and start typing, which inserts my comments in context, like this one. I'm still not understanding why you believe this is difficult. I can do this in Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, and Kmail with ease. I then use the SHIFT- keys to highlight downward if I'm "snipping" something, and hit the Delete key. My hands never leave the keyboard! > 2) Bottom-posting is not any better than top-posting. I guess my problem with it is grammatical and practical -- if a reply chain gets long and someone wishes to add to it while keeping multiple author's context, a mixture of either top or bottom-posting gets confusing for the reader. The language is written top-down, replies with context should be also. It seems to me the rule of common sense more than the rule of law would apply here. - Context-post when keeping context is helpful. - Simply reply without quoting if context is obvious. - Don't bother top-posting at all -- it doesn't help the reader in the slightest. > For example, Wayne Topa wrote: > "The same is true of top posting a one line reply to a long post > and including the complete thread in the reply. That should be > history!" Absolutely true. The quoting of the original message is the problem here. It wasn't necessary. > And I think replacing top-posting to bottom-posting and we have: > "The same is true of bottom posting a one line reply to a long post > and including the complete thread in the reply. That should be > history!" > > No difference here. Actually in this case, bottom-posting is even > worse than top-posting. Agreed, don't quote when not necessary. > 3) Outlook and Outlook Express are the de-facto standard. The IT > administrators are not all stupid by choosing them. That's debatable. Outlook in a corporate environment still does a few things that are completely non-email related that keep it the standard, but those benefits are slowly going away, and free or nearly-free replacements are stepping up to being able to handle those tasks. Since most of those benefits are integrated with Exchange Server and Active Directory, it'll take a long time for companies that have already spent money on those things (very expensive... very very expensive when you factor in the performance level of the hardware needed to operate Exchange) to leave them. However, their smaller faster more-competitive rivals will start using free or close-to-free tools to do the same jobs, and they'll gain ground on the larger, slower to change, companies. That's my opinion on it anyway... a server or server farm with appropriate RAID, speed, and capabilities for 10,000 users on Exchange is enormously expensive, compared to say a farm running postfix, Courier-IMAP, and clients running Thunderbird or Evolution. If the organization can culturally deal with using an off-board calendering app (or better a web-based one on their Intranet), since it's rare to see Outlook calendaring used extensively BETWEEN organizations... they can save boatloads of money on software licenses and hardware. But the cultural shift is sometimes harder than the technological one. Many organizations "front-end" Outlook with regional or departmental Exchange servers, and do the heavy mail transport lifting behind the scenes with Unix or Linux. The bigger the organization, the more likely they have a system like this in the "back room". > 4) Anti-top-posting sentiment is more religious or historical than > it should be justified. Some old timers make it a rule and try to > impose it to other users. They are still doing it, however only > on some unix-centric mailing list which by no means should be the > norm now. It's grammatical, not religious. Unless you call English professors and great Writers and Editors, "Father" or "Reverend". ;-) Of course, some of the debates that language people get into, and the proliferation of more and more slang into English would tend to make me agree -- perhaps English should be taught as a religion! You have to believe grammar is important, or you will use words like, "Shizzle my zizzle" in daily language. (No offense meant toward Snoop-Dog, Flava-Flave, or any of the rap music crowd!) I understand your point - I just think when we're trying to communicate, adding complexity in any form is backwards. Top-posting adds complexity, bottom-posting doesn't. Contextual posting adds less complexity, but has the added benefit of helping the reader separate the ideas into digestible pieces. Of course, when it comes to slang... it always makes things more difficult to understand: (Horrible but hopefully funny example below.) Yo Yo Yo, I'm Kickin' like Chicken, G-Dawg Homie. S'up in da Hood, G? My pins on PORTB be chillin' with 4 volts juice when my silicon shizzle be stuck cold in a bad loop, dawg. They's supposed to be bouncin' from 0 to 4 in time with my fresh tunes I'm poppin' into Pin 8 from my deaf CD player, yo. I ain't never gonna figure out how to cap that bug and pimp my ride with sequenced ground effects if I cain't get y'alls help. A'ight? By the way that Olin, he's a Master of the keys, baby. I'm usin' his wicked fly libraries. (I hope that comes off as funny as it sounds in my head... it would be so much better to record it to audio! And in no way do I mean it to be racist nor do I want a rap music fan sending his "homies" after me for that one! Hahahaha...) Nate -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist