[Newark] Top posting and quotes (was: Upcoming Newark LUG Meets)

[Steve Caddy]

Khismett Riddle wrote:

> is it impolite to remove the quotes otherwise?

I don't think so. I generally only quote the parts of text that I'm replying to 
(as above), purely so that reads know that I'm responding to.

The main problem with not trimming quotes is that in digest format, it gets 
awfully confusing re-reading masses of text that you've already read, and 
you're looking for a one line reply somewhere in there. However, if there's no 
digest format (ie it's not sent via a managed mailing list) then there's no 
harm in maintaining previous quotes. In fact, in that case, I prefer top 
posting, with all the replies flowing after in reverse order - totally 
inappropriate for digest readers, but ok in that situation.

There's one mailing list I'm on, where bottom posting has been hammered into 
subscribers rather too harshly to the extent that they reply below signature 
delimiters (they don't selectively quote). I've set my email reader 
(Thunderbird) to supress everything below a sig delimiter by default, and I 
find that unnecessarily quoting a signature causes me more frustration than 
anything else. However, in a top posted thread it doesn't bother me.

The bottom line is, if there's no digest, top posting is ok, and it's also ok 
to keep all the previous posts as they'll pobably appear below your sig, where 
some readers will hide them anyway. If there is digest, then bottom posting 
with selective quoting is preferable.

That's my take on it anyway :-)

Steve

PS I also like changing the subject line when the topic drifts. Clients with 
propper threading handle this without any problems. One of my other pet hates 
is people starting totally new threads by replying to an earlier post, and 
simply changing the subject.

-- 
Steven M Caddy, MEng ------------------------------------------------------
"Hardware - the part of the computer you kick when the software fails"
Email: steve.m.caddy at ntlworld.com