Re: Top vs Bottom Posting (Was: Memory leak with CreateProcess())

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"David Jones" <ncic@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

David J. Craig wrote:

No. Please don't bottom post.

"Arnaud Debaene" <adebaene@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

PS : Please don't top-post

*ever* need to read the quoted text to get context for your reply.
message might get lost or arrive out of order... no one would
Outlook does it automatically; we don't do it because the parent
(top-to-bottom, left-to-right). After all, we only quote because
the fact that it follows the order in which people normally read
practiced in virtually all public non- microsoft.* groups, plus
read. Nevermind the fact that it's a usenet convention and is
Yes, don't bottom post. That makes everything so much harder to

David

We write online and offline mail readers since the 80s even before Microsoft
had its own. It is not a usenet convention. Before usenet, we had
corporate email systems. Top posting is more closer associated with
corporate electronic mail. The concept of "quoting", inline quoting,
bottom posting, etc was something that evolved over time.

I will venture to say that most people over 35-40, who are not experience in
the public discussion forums, whether it was online, fidonet echos,
newsgroups, etc, all use top posting replies simply because that is how it
was done with their corporate or work mail system.

You have to remember that generally most messaging is single minded, so in
most cases, top posting is fine. Sometimes you just don't want to destroy
the original content so that there is nothing taken out of content.

It is when you start to get into a "chat" like messaging where you have
multiple thoughts, concepts, long messages, maybe where a top post becomes
almost like a "disservice" to the OP sometimes because it may not cover all
the OP concepts, or maybe you don't want to either.

Just like this message with where I am covering several points, some will
top post with one or more points, others will selected quote using inline or
bottom posting.

In fact, in our old Silver Xpress Mail Reader, it has a Smart "Thought"
Quoting system where it helps you highlight and select words, sentences and
paragraphs as you read the message and allows you to quote each one
individually building it up so that the final buffer has a nicely quoted
reply messages where you can do your final edit prior to saving and sending.
This was original done for the Visually Impaired (Blind Users) as part of
our SFI (Speech Friendly Interface) system. They needed a way to HEAR each
sentence or paragraph, etc, pausing at each one so they can QUOTE it and
write a response. They loved it, and even many of the non-blind used it
too!

In any case, I've seen it all during our 25+ year history with millions of
users over the years using our mail products. I would say, at this point, I
say anyone who complains about top or bottom posting is just trying to play
"god", trying to show they know something more than the other, and in my
view, are just ignorant. However, I do believe that once you do get
involved in active participation that you use some common sense aesthetics
so that people can read your mail without straining. Typically most people
will learn for themselves just by hanging out, reading other messages nicely
quoted, etc.

--
Hector Santos, Santronics Software, Inc.
http://www.santronics.com

.

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