I know that old nettiquette *required* bottom posting, but the truth of the matter is that societal conventions can actually change.  Top-posting has become almost the norm with most people nowadays.

HTML posting (which I probably am, by the way) is also accepted, especially in the US.  With over 250 messages in *THIS* inbox (and this is not my main account) every day, having a cable connection is nearly mandatory.  I have so many threads that it's nearly impossible for me to read all of them by going through ALL the way, and scrolling to the bottom.  There's no way I could or would be on this list on dialup.

English is a top-to-bottom language, rather than the other way around.  Nettiquette has *CHANGED* in recent years, due to people's actions.

If the server filtered HTML and converted to plaintext, and that's what the people at Novell wanted, that would probably be fine.  E-mail clients are so sophisticated (and have been for nearly ten years now) that they can accept plaintext AND HTML.  My client (Thunderbird) sends out both if set that way.

The bottom-posters are the squeakiest wheels.  They point to established nettiquette that's been around for twenty years, as people *USED* to be on 300/1200/2400 baud, and it was polite both to bottom post AND TO SNIP.  They are the most vocal bunch.  In my experience, top-posters like myself look at this and just shrug, and go about it in our usual way.  Top-posters don't generally *care* about whether or not it's in HTML either, because 99% of e-mail IS in HTML format.  Bandwidth considerations make this almost trivial in the US.  I know - there are a few COUNTRIES on the planet (generally extremely small countries) where only dialup exists, and certain countries like Australia have bandwidth caps in most cases, etc., but by and large people in the US are so used to it (and make up a majority in many cases) that it will continue unabated.  Not making a statement pro or con, just stating.

Unless the list is moderated and top OR bottom posting is specifically enforced, it's banging your head against the wall to try to police the top-posters, as we number in the billions.  Remember, people go with what seems *natural* rather than what is dictated in most cases.  Top-posting is a product of English (and many languages around the world) starting top-to-bottom, left to right.  I know some languages like Hebrew follow different rules, too, but this list seems to be mostly in English.

If there were a specific format chosen by Novell, and the list was moderated, it's nearly impossible to force people one way or the other.

Just my 2¢.
RP

Lode Vermeiren wrote:
houghi schreef:

I see a lot of top and bottom posting going on. It makes it very hard to
read with all the scrolling up and down. First to see what the question
was and then back to the answer.

Would it be wise to recommend bottom posting?

More info on this subject:
http://www.caliburn.nl/topposting.html
http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html

 

Please, bottom posting!
I've been mailing top-posters off-list for the past few days, because it's driving me nuts.

Same goes for HTML by the way.
Can this information be included in the list welcome message?
Hell, why not automatically bounce (or filter) HTML posts?

My € 0.02

-Lode