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. As for clean up I agree that long email chains can become a pain specially when answers are posted at the bottom. I tend to clean up when the messages get to a couple of screens and replace the removed section with [snip]. Hugh follows the ideas put forward in: <http://www.idallen.com/topposting.html> What do others think? -- Alvin Starr || voice: (905)513-7688 Netvel Inc. || Cell: (416)806-0133 alvin@netvel.net ||
On 16-03-15 04:02 PM, Alvin Starr wrote:
My position is that posting at the top is most efficient and the easiest for the reader.
You are welcome to take whatever position you like. But you do not have a RIGHT to be on the list. And we have conventions. One is to bottom post. Play nice, and you will be treated nicely. If you want to change the list convention, you are welcome to put forth your ideas. But continue to follow the existing convention until a change is made. -- Stephen
Alvin Starr wrote:
What do others think?
Don't want to be that guy but GTALUG already has a stance:
Have fun on the list, and remember,
* Where possible, please try to post and reply in plain text.
* Please trim quotes in replies, and
* post your response below the quoted text.
You can read more over on the website: <https://gtalug.org/mailing-list/#talk>
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 On 15/03/16 03:10 PM, Myles Braithwaite wrote:
Alvin Starr wrote:
What do others think?
I'm not into telling others how to communicate. If you have something to contribute about GNU/Linux and/or are basically on-topic, I say just go for it. I would hope I wouldn't have to ask someone to use common-sense in editing email, but, sometimes people need a "clue-by-four" upside the head :) <-- insert lol here kind regards, Daniel Villarreal -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2 iQEcBAEBCAAGBQJW6KyMAAoJEPJRiTioPntJcakH/2Ud8HZdlFtuT5DZLgowU/3R P1JJv6PLT1gfirWdUA6Zcwfek1+Scgy1OjWtdhIXhj9Z+iJa73pu/0/HGiwjKVkI Jt9lBfz6RTN0VEdzH7eMAG2svfPK3aHr+qT64MMoxVvOkquLPQFHqM76Y91CMz7f Cp9fujbizVzfGqJuiV/C0V9Eup7xp68cNRqX512UQk4AZzo74wJ/SyH5vRZ3ayls NdcFN5XNqZZdcB4aB47DQ1rc2PIWmyZMhBpXCiAgkA/jZpDP/b71Z+wcy+1h/w+t MwdH/tREUJSYnHzuNh33yk8B3/IAHjOWGeX/dan18+1PEF3XfSaMB+/6LW5ndrY= =N140 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
This is one of the few mailing lists on which this seems to matter and where it has been a recurring conversation. I recall the persuasive arguments made by someone on this list, whose name I don't recall, who uses a screen reader about the merits of top posting, which is why I eliminated the original quoted message entirely from my reply. Even if I have the opinion that bottom posting is more logical, and I do, my opinion does not trump making what is really an inconsequential accommodation on my part to include someone whose assistive device favours top posting for various technical reasons that really don't matter. We can be right about this and justify how right we are by making all sorts of great arguments, like not everyone uses a GUI client, and the worst, "Those are the rules.", or be kind and accommodate those who use screen readers. It's an easy choice for me. We claim to care about being inclusive. Let's demonstrate that through our actions. -- Regards, Clifford Ilkay + 1 647-778-8696
On 15/03/16 04:02 PM, Alvin Starr wrote:
Hugh Redelmeier posted a message to the list about my posting replies at the top of messages.
It depends on the purpose: if you're having a discussion on several sub-points, interposed and comb-like like this is effective.
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.
Top and bottom seem to fit the interactive resolution of a single point (top) and friendly discourse (bottom) --dave -- David Collier-Brown, | Always do right. This will gratify System Programmer and Author | some people and astonish the rest davecb@spamcop.net | -- Mark Twain
On 03/15/2016 04:52 PM, David Collier-Brown wrote:
On 15/03/16 04:02 PM, Alvin Starr wrote:
Hugh Redelmeier posted a message to the list about my posting replies at the top of messages.
It depends on the purpose: if you're having a discussion on several sub-points, interposed and comb-like like this is effective.
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.
Top and bottom seem to fit the interactive resolution of a single point (top) and friendly discourse (bottom)
Perhaps we should compromise and post in the middle. ;-)
On Tue 15 Mar 2016 16:02 -0400, Alvin Starr wrote:
My position is that posting at the top is most efficient and the easiest for the reader.
No. Bottom post only.
I tend to clean up when the messages get to a couple of screens and replace the removed section with [snip].
Trim all replies. Anything other than a carefully selected passage that you are responding to is just noise. Mailing list etiquette is different than corporate email practices.
On Tue, 15 Mar 2016 16:02:34 -0400 Alvin Starr <alvin@netvel.net> 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. As for clean up I agree that long email chains can become a pain specially when answers are posted at the bottom. I tend to clean up when the messages get to a couple of screens and replace the removed section with [snip].
Alvin, I prefer to post at the bottom. My assumption is that you and everyone else reads through the message I am replying to and understands my context. I, helpfully, delete the stuff from your message I am not replying to, making everyone's read more efficient. This is an important point. Back in the day, you would read through the original messages, over and over again, the xecond reply, the third reply, the fourth reply all at 300_baud, the fifth reply, and the sixth replay, followed by some literary gem like the sentence "Fuck you, asshole.". You never get back the time you spent. Windows people scream at you when you reply anywhere other than at the top. This does protect you from people who do not delete unnecessary stuff from the email. Space on mail servers is cheap now. Scrolling down multiple messages can get interesting if you are not careful. -- Howard Gibson hgibson@eol.ca howard.gibson@teledyneoptech.com jhowardgibson@gmail.com http://home.eol.ca/~hgibson
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. If you're replying to particular point(s) in the message, then just after the point(s) in context. Personally, I usually delete if I don't see poster's writing in first screen. Of course, with exception. I know Hugh always bottom post, so I hold off delete to 3rd screen. -- William 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. As for clean up I agree that long email chains can become a pain specially when answers are posted at the bottom. I tend to clean up when the messages get to a couple of screens and replace the removed section with [snip].
Hugh follows the ideas put forward in:
<http://www.idallen.com/topposting.html>
What do others think?
-- Alvin Starr || voice: (905)513-7688 Netvel Inc. || Cell: (416)806-0133 alvin@netvel.net ||
--- Talk Mailing List talk@gtalug.org https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
On 15 March 2016 at 23:44, William Park <opengeometry@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@gmail.com
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 On 16/03/16 10:16 AM, Giles Orr wrote:
... My suggestion ... let it go. Make bottom-posting "recommended" and just accept that we live in an imperfect world.
+1 Anyone from the Falls/St. Catharines area interested in carpooling to the GTALUG meetings? And/or interested in also meeting in the Falls/St. Catharines area ? Daniel Villarreal http://www.youcanlinux.org youcanlinux@gmail.com PGP key 2F6E 0DC3 85E2 5EC0 DA03 3F5B F251 8938 A83E 7B49 https://pgp.mit.edu/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xF2518938A83E7B49 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2 iQEcBAEBCAAGBQJW6XptAAoJEPJRiTioPntJ8t4IALDXxMqs3ExPVA8m027dHkRo p3TpGn4H8WmmTHtXWiWtALBUgtkWUDjXZ70EBpdY2qFQ77T3HwWp8fvkSQBTGHJK IhrJuTeOr9GMugO7yOOFEfvB3P8GeunUqYWKtC9IHq5iNsL0lVx47MRpNHgaBp7V dwIn1OgNyCiie1IYsO9imvq/Bev2RenDt8MgtGL0yDaSLqylZy+QK769YzoY0QDJ ZxUU8EI8XuHq60eQE320+TPPEpggGkq4YX/nTmG64Wm7nla9LnE+XtmSH1eeRbC9 VrxU+FEE/xfwoazOftLKfidoWwMuFFHE+sgr2Dy7RVV5GvRkrqWHlWvjEN5NFB0= =LudE -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 10:23:27AM -0500, Daniel Villarreal wrote:
Anyone from the Falls/St. Catharines area interested in carpooling to the GTALUG meetings? And/or interested in also meeting in the Falls/St. Catharines area ?
Trimmed and bottom-posting... :-) It's always about location. If you look at LUGs that are still around, all have proper venue where people can do presentation. Eg. Kitchener/Waterloo, Toronto, Peterborough. They go for food/coffee afterwards, of course. -- William
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 On 16/03/16 06:01 PM, William Park wrote:
... interested in carpooling to meetings ...?
Trimmed and bottom-posting... :-)
No worries, I'm casual :)
It's always about location. If you look at LUGs that are still around, all have proper venue where people can do presentation. Eg. Kitchener/Waterloo, Toronto, Peterborough. They go for food/coffee afterwards, of course.
Thanks for the info! I'm just starting to get into the LUG scene, thanks to my wife for the encouragement! Daniel -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2 iQEcBAEBCAAGBQJW6gL4AAoJEPJRiTioPntJPNcIAKFpNCRL7uOAncvnCkSQWrNl ly28V/GezdtA0fKq2dSWniAzNJBnL94QFq7WzOtG7BuhnUQb25HtoLa9z4LKXtik aK9ka6ib8NqnhMEmtOCitjie379ZUECu4RSrid7W/qsC8HpRgCSE53g0yMiszFf7 PpY5e/mgMTHQaJaqL66bHtLCvln2ni54SP1q5duiRSX0gAXkfSz++ODKkkFfkhdo JNrIeQcy1nUTxHnydH182Nda9W2HLkC6m4uxoCK3hnSBdx0VtWRxY0TXg/fjSWH0 snI4438Qxq5dpNEWMIZ78Rcj1SSCUVFaobSYgczEAVyqMcKCOA/V84PAGs79xkQ= =6Odi -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On 03/16/2016 11:16 AM, Giles Orr wrote:
On 15 March 2016 at 23:44, William Park <opengeometry@yahoo.ca> wrote: [snip] just accept that we live in an imperfect world.
Given that the list defined preference is to post at the bottom I will do this as often as I remember and as much as possible make sure I remove most of the quoted text. That being said here are my arguments for replies at the top. 1) It is easier on people with accessibility issues( I checked with someone who handles making accessible documents for the Ont. Govt.). 2) mail readers that I have seen and used will open the message at the top of the message so that I will need to scroll down through the message to get to the reply. This is exacerbated when working on a small screen device like a smart phone. Even if mail readers opened at the bottom they would then be showing the signature block and possibly not exentding up into the replay. 3)bottom posting sets up massively editing the quoted text as manditory. 4)forced deletion of most of the quoted text can remove context for the next reader forcing them to try and track back the message chain to find the content assuming they have the previous messages. I have deliberately chosen to fix Thunderbird so that it puts replies at the top because I am convinced that for most people who I interact with having immediately visible messages and uncensored content are important features. There is some logic and reasoning behind my choice and all are free to disagree/disregard them. -- Alvin Starr || voice: (905)513-7688 Netvel Inc. || Cell: (416)806-0133 alvin@netvel.net ||
4) forced deletion of most of the quoted text can remove context for the next reader forcing them to try and track back the message chain to find the content assuming they have the previous messages.
This can be most important, especially when there is a danger of mis-quoting, mis-paraphrasing, or deleting context that is irrelevant to the quoter, but very important to the writer of the quoted text. For several years now I have used the format exemplified in this message, where I quote text that I am addressing (which I may also highlight in its original context), then write my response below it, and then include (usually) the entire message below my signature. That way I always preserve the immediate context of my quotes text, as well as the preceding exchange(s), which may be relevant. Only when the tail end is totally irrelevant do I remove the irrelevant tail. I am on many mailing lists with people who top-post, who don't know how to edit, and who often don't know what a Subject header is, or how to edit it, or how to start a new message thread, or how to find the email address of a sender, or how to locate previous messages, or how to find text in messages. Nevertheless, these are humans whose dignity I must respect, but who are not able to understand, to learn, or to change "technical" matters. Yet, they do contribute to the best of their ability to the dialog, and their contributions may be valuable. It's a small accommodation to make, and since I am able, I do it. Technically it is far better to keep previous messages so that one can find and review previous context. Unfortunately that is not something that "non-technical" people will or can do. Perhaps the *real* problem is that protracted group conversations on email lists are limited by the quoting mechanism of referencing prior text, and a design assumption legacy of offline, slow, and asynchronous, and also paper / printer terminals. Imagine if we had highly intelligent email list presentation software that displays the messages properly sorted, scrolled to the newest unread. With hyperlinks of included text. (Unrealistic, I know.) -- Peter Renzland@gmail.com
On Mar 16, 2016, at 16:13, Alvin Starr <alvin@netvel.net> wrote:
On 03/16/2016 11:16 AM, Giles Orr wrote:
On 15 March 2016 at 23:44, William Park <opengeometry@yahoo.ca> wrote: [snip] just accept that we live in an imperfect world.
Given that the list defined preference is to post at the bottom I will do this as often as I remember and as much as possible make sure I remove most of the quoted text.
That being said here are my arguments for replies at the top. 1) It is easier on people with accessibility issues( I checked with someone who handles making accessible documents for the Ont. Govt.). 2) mail readers that I have seen and used will open the message at the top of the message so that I will need to scroll down through the message to get to the reply. This is exacerbated when working on a small screen device like a smart phone. Even if mail readers opened at the bottom they would then be showing the signature block and possibly not exentding up into the replay. 3)bottom posting sets up massively editing the quoted text as manditory. 4)forced deletion of most of the quoted text can remove context for the next reader forcing them to try and track back the message chain to find the content assuming they have the previous messages.
I have deliberately chosen to fix Thunderbird so that it puts replies at the top because I am convinced that for most people who I interact with having immediately visible messages and uncensored content are important features.
There is some logic and reasoning behind my choice and all are free to disagree/disregard them.
-- Alvin Starr || voice: (905)513-7688 Netvel Inc. || Cell: (416)806-0133 alvin@netvel.net ||
--- Talk Mailing List talk@gtalug.org https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
| From: William Park <opengeometry@yahoo.ca> | Personally, I usually delete if I don't see poster's writing in first | screen. Of course, with exception. I know Hugh always bottom post, so | I hold off delete to 3rd screen. That's kind. But what kind of screen do you have? Of the almost 2000 posts I've made to the lists since October 1999, only 11 have had more than 24 non-header lines before the first line that matched this pattern: '^[^|]'. Do you have less than 12 lines on your screen? Perhaps you use a GUI MUA that squanders screen space. I created an mbox file with the postings. I called it 99. Then I ran: <99 formail +1 -I "" -s grep -m 1 -n '^[^|]' \ | sed -e 's/:.*//' 999 | sort -n | uniq -c This gave me a histogram of lengths. For technical reasons, you need to subtract two from each of the lengths. So the length "2" is for messages with no initial quoting. When I quote, I generally leave a blank line before my response. So how could there be messages with "3" as a length? In both those cases I accidentally started my message with an extra blank line (no quote). 512 2 2 3 74 4 13 5 186 6 300 7 219 8 148 9 134 10 100 11 68 12 44 13 41 14 28 15 22 16 24 17 6 18 14 19 4 20 4 21 7 22 5 23 4 24 3 25 2 26 4 27 1 29 1 30 3 31 My mail-reading window normally is tall enough that in every case, some of the actual content would show on the first page. For example, it is now 89 lines (not set for this message). My monitor allows 124 lines. All this with the default Gnome Terminal font.
On 03/16/2016 03:31 PM, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
| From: William Park <opengeometry@yahoo.ca>
| Personally, I usually delete if I don't see poster's writing in first [snip] Talk Mailing List talk@gtalug.org https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk As a datapoint.
I use Thunderbird and with the way I work I have more screen allocated to the mailbox list and mail messages list than actual mail content. I have about 20 lines of text that shows up at the top of the mail message unless I actually open full message but usually I don't have to. On my mobile device I have closer to 10 lines once you end up with line wrap. -- Alvin Starr || voice: (905)513-7688 Netvel Inc. || Cell: (416)806-0133 alvin@netvel.net ||
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. As for clean up I agree that long email chains can become a pain specially when answers are posted at the bottom. I tend to clean up when the messages get to a couple of screens and replace the removed section with [snip].
For a technical discussion, answering each point makes a lot of sense after it is made. Top posting is incomprehensible for anything with more than one idea in it. So while top posting may be just fine in business email, it sucks for a technical list (which I sure consider this one to be). Just because outlook can't be configured to let you do email properly doesn't mean top posting is a good system. -- Len Sorensen
participants (14)
-
Alvin Starr -
CLIFFORD ILKAY -
D. Hugh Redelmeier -
Daniel Villarreal -
David Collier-Brown -
Giles Orr -
Howard Gibson -
James Knott -
Lennart Sorensen -
Loui Chang -
Myles Braithwaite -
Peter Renzland -
Stephen -
William Park