[Gllug] Threaded email clients

[Steve Nelson]

On 9/7/05, Peter Childs <bluedragon at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> Most people actually perfer top posting...

No - most people (ie ordinary people in the real world) have never
even thought about it.  They use Microsoft clients or webmail clients
which automatically top post, and are surrounded by people for whom an
email 'chain' or 'thread' is normal.

> ...because they can see what new
> without having to scroll or read through alot of old rubbish. 

Actually what you describe is frequently what happens in the
top-posting world, where it is very difficult and laborious to get the
whole picture, and almost impossible to work out who said what and
when.

> I've actually had customers complain about bottom posting.

No-one is advocating 'bottom-posting' - we advocate trimming and
quoting.  Bottom posting without accurate quoting and trimming is also
messy, over-verbose, and bad practice.

The complaints you allude to, however, are common in a top-posting,
non-technical/geek environment.  What you are actually seeing is the
result of people mixing quoting styles.  If people try 'bottom
posting' or 'quoting and trimming' in the middle of a 20-person email
chain, this will only cause confusion and irritation.

I dislike top-posting, but accept that its the norm in my company environment.

All we're asking is that in a community where the overwhelming
majority of people abhor top-posting, and where the overwhelming
majority trim and quote, that no-one does the equivalent by mixing
quoting styles.

S.
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