On 5/6/2013 2:15 PM, Craig James wrote:
Just out of curiousity, I see comments like this all the time:
> (*please* stop top-posting).
I've been participating in newsgroups since UUCP days, and I've never
encountered a group before that encouraged bottom posting. Bottom
posting has traditionally been considered rude -- it forces readers to
scroll, often through pages and pages of text, to see a few lines of
original material.
The most efficient strategy, one that respects other members' time, is
to briefly summarize your point at the TOP of a posting, then to
*briefly* quote only the relevant parts of the post to which you are
replying, and bottom-post after the quoted text. That lets your reader
quickly see if it's relevant or not, and move on to the next post.
Contributors in these newsgroups seem to think it's OK to quote five
pages of someone else's response, then add one or two sentences at the
bottom ... it's just laziness that forces readers to wade through the
same stuff over and over in each thread.
How did the Postgres newsgroups get started with this "only bottom
post" idea?
(I'm not trying to start a flame war, just genuinely curious.)
Craig
I always feel good when I see this post, it means I've been following a
mailing list for a (relatively) long time...
It doesn't matter to me at all, I just go with whatever is generally
accepted by the mailing list (or perhaps, whatever is generally accepted
by the most vocal part of the mailing list). Although, I only ever
really did the whole "inline snippets" thing when I'm tearing someone up
in a flame war. Most other replies don't require the precision-quoting.
Currently I'm using Thunderbird, a web page, or various mobile apps to
check my email, and all of them mark the quoted part well enough that I
can skip it and see what is new, or read it knowing full well it is a
quote. Haven't done text-only email for ages, but even back then I
believe there were markings in the margin for what was a quote and what
was new content.
-- Stephen
--
Sent via pgsql-admin mailing list (pgsql-admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-admin
