On Thursday 17 October 2002 12:57, Konstantin (Kastus) Shchuka wrote: [...]
Top-posting is a bad thing and is against any normal logic. Of course, it depends on one's definition of normality.
I've been using e-mail since the 1980s. I don't even have a newsreader configured. I've been subscribed to dozens of mailing lists and currently receive about a dozen, on a variety of topics. Everybody agrees that trimming quoted material is the courteous thing to do. The concern with waiting for the bottom of the message to write new stuff... is in the minority, and is a separate issue. [...]
But for me, if I see a long quote in the beginning, and few lines of answer at the bottom, I'm not ready to read it unless it is really interesting.
If quoting is bad and message contains no answers for you, don't read it. Save your time and make your reading easy.
Yeah... I used to put a sarcastic sig at the bottom of my messages that said: "Do not read this message if you disagree with my views." The whole point of the sarcasm was that if they were reading it, it was too late. I see a parallel here, with what you just said. I wonder if you recognize it...? [...]
By doing so, I do save a lot of time and effort.
You save your time and effort while wasting time and money of the people on dial-up connections paying per kB transferred. Not everybody on this list has cable or DSL, because they simply live in a country where such things do not exist at all. Please think about them a bit.
You are arguing about two different things. The issue of "too much quoted material" is not the same as the issue of "put brief comments at the top where they are the first thing to be read" versus "make the reader read the old stuff first, and only find out at the end if s/he even wanted to read your message". [...]
Please do not leave original message at the bottom.
It's only sensible and courteous to trim material to which you are not directly replying, but that's a separate issue from the placement of the reply. Somebody previously wondered why all the horrid and disgusting Windoze users had a habit of posting at the top. I mentioned standard practices in business e-mail (which is where most of those people picked up their e-mail habits, and where Microsoft dominates). The replies all assumed that I was defending excessive quoting. I'm not. Anyway, only 13 people are still reading this thread, so nobody is going to be persuaded of anything at this point. :-) Cheers, /kevin -- ** He-e-ey! NICE hat!