ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Simos Xenitellis <simos.lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 11:11 PM, Torsten Sachse
<torsten.sachse@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi everybody,
>
> one of today's emails made wonder once more why most people on this list
> seem to be against top-posting as this is the way I have learnt to
> reply. It might not be taught that way everywhere in Germany, but at
> least where I grew up.
>
> What exactly is "wrong" with top-posting? If not top-posting, emails
> with several levels of replies in them can get very lengthy and the new
> information can be difficult to find especially if the reply is in-line.
> I also don't think the assumption holds that people who top-post do not
> carefully read what they reply to as I, for one, always do.
>
> I am not criticizing, just very curious.
>

Here is a graphic example why top-posting is not intuitive:

A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

The whole issue is described well at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style
and it is a good read about posting styles.

Some people receive lots of emails and will probably not have a full
recollection
of a long thread. By bottom-posting or inline posting, the last e-mail
will have the natural progression of the discussion.

For top-posting to be useful, a poster would need to summarise in
their reply the whole discussion.
If you top-post and you say "Yes", then it's quite annoying. "Yes" to
what? You need to put the extra effort
to summarize.

In bottom-posting, you may get a huge thread which is difficult to read.
Here, what every person in a thread does, is make effort to give
substantial/constructive replies
so that the thread is answered or reaches a conclusion soon.
It is equally annoying if the thread just goes on and on.
A helpful criteria when replying is to think: Is my reply constructive
that can lead to conclude this thread?

Simos