[tdf-discuss] Re: Top Posting... Can we have an LO Mailing List Guidelines Page?

On 9/9/11 11:24 PM, Andrew Douglas Pitonyak wrote:
> On 09/09/2011 06:05 PM, Ken Springer wrote:
> > On 9/9/11 3:40 PM, Andrew Douglas Pitonyak wrote:
> > > The links do not lead me to assume that top posting is expected. If the
> > > documentation group desires bottom posting only, the user should be
> > > informed when the register. Even then, I expect that most people will
> > > miss it. Expecting someone to follow a link and then follow another link
> > > seems a wee bit unlikely.
> > >
> > > Bottom posting is great when a message is not read in context of the
> > > other messages. When I read threaded messages, it is annoying to wade
> > > through the message history before I arrive at the content of interest.
> > > I might prefer, therefore, that people be prodded into seriously
> > > shortening content from all previous posters to only contain the
> > > portions relevant to their reply.
> >
> > If you read the Learn to Quote link on the netiquette page, it gets
> > into why bottom posting and interspersion is or should be the desired
> > way.
>
> Read it many times. I remain unconvinced. Their points assume a single
> style of reading email.

I don't think I agree totally.  I think their points apply to reading 
newsgroups, not email. :-)  I think the two should be kept separate 
since they server different purposes.

> I read my email in a threaded view. Usually, I have already read
> everything but the latest reply, so, the the top portion of the message
> is not required (and is therefore ignored). Unfortunately, it is common
> for there to be so much of the message included, that I need to scroll
> to view the new text. In other words, it is less efficient and it wastes
> my time. (to put it into context, I have counted the steps required to
> get to my car when I leave work by different routes)
>
> I receive a very large volume of email. It is usually less than 1000
> messages a day, but, still, the time and physical movements to scroll to
> the bottom of each message is sufficient to stress my wrists and hands.
> So, if I can skim the new content in less than two seconds, and it takes
> me longer than that to even get to the new content, well, then I more
> than double the time I spend skimming email.
>
> The bigger concern for me is neither bottom nor top posting, it is
> trimming the message if you do not top post. With a top post, I can
> trivially see the response.

"I feel your pain!"  A poster in another newsgroup said that to me, and 
I've been looking for a place to use it!   LOL

I find top posted posts harder to follow the flow of the message.  My 
preference would be interspersion, since your reply is right below the 
part of a post you are replying to.  Top posting is like the old Karnak 
routine Johnny Carson had on the Tonight Show.  He'd give the answer, 
then tell you the question inside a sealed envelope.  Most of the time, 
when I read a top posted message, I end up scrolling through the message 
anyway, wondering "What the H*** is he/she talking about?"    :-D

So I suspect it's not going to make much difference about message length 
whether you top, bottom, or intersperse you posts, it's going to be the 
poster and the tools used (i.e. what agent you are using to read the 
posts) that will ultimately make a post easy to read or not.

Seriously, though, I checked the source for your message, and we both 
are using Thunderbird 6.

Within the last week, I learned about the QuoteCollapse add-on.  It 
takes each quoted section of a reply, and collapses it to one line. 
There's a little plus sign that will let you expand that section to full 
length.  It's great for those posts where there's been no trimming, but 
lots of replies.

At this point, this add-on would seem to eliminate the need of trimming, 
too.

Add it to your TB, I'd like to know what you think of it.  It may do a 
lot to solve your issues and concerns.

If the author for Quote Colors would make that add-on compatible with TB 
6, then replying would be easier, IMO.


> > But like you, I think the LO people need to specify it directly on the
> > page, even better would be for them to actually write their own
> > netiquette page.
>
> If they care, they should write it. Yes.

Or, given the resources they have, a dedicated netiquette page is just 
too far down the priority list, and/or no one has offered to do it.

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 6.0.2
Thunderbird 6.0.2
LibreOffice 3.3.3


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