[sclug] top posting

[Damion Yates]

On Wed, 4 May 2005, AlanCocks wrote:

[snipped]

> Personal mail is usually between a very small number of readers
> (two?) who each are intimately aware of the background and current
> context of any mail. So top posting is common. The preceeding
> context is known well and will almost never need reading again.

It sounds like you're using email rather than instant messaging client
software in an IM style way.  This is actually fine, but the fact that
your client has left the bulk of the previous messages tucked at the
bottom of the ever growing email is just a bandwidth hog and less
forgivable.

> In a business context, it can be useful to have a convenient record
> of the total exchange to date. However, each person is intimately
> aware of the preceeding context, it is not usually necessary to read
> any of it again. It's just there for reference in emergency.

You cannot trust the contents of emails later on the thread and people
should learn to understand this and keep previous emails.  Gmail seems
to have smart anti top-posting style ways of threading emails on
screen so you get to see emails in the style people used years ago.
They seem to be trying to encourage good email practice which isn't
surprising as google seem to be a bunch of geeks.

If I need to attach a previous email or thread I do so as mime
multipart attachments of the actual emails, not some tab inserted
messed up formatting nightmare that Outlook/exchange cause.  Original
emails are barely readable in the text portion of a long thread from
an exchange/outlook thread.

Perhaps this should become a more noted issue, better warnings about
forwarding entire emails, not MS edited versions, or ones in the body
that any user can taylor to what they want.  This is especially true
if corporations are assuming that long exchange/outlook threads are
reliable.

[..]

> In personal mail I use top posting fairly frequently. It depends on
> the experience (in using email) I think the recipient has got, and
> also the complexity of my reply, and the preceeding context.

Normally I'll reformat their replies in to what they should have done,
and explain while doing it.  For the few that don't change I switch to
emailing with no context or previous email included, this is normally
find as it's IM style banter by this point and the subject keeps you
on track for what it was all about.

> It depends on circumstances. Personal mail also does not often need
> a logical threaded format. Personal relationships are - well,
> personal, and one of the useful skills is to get along happily and
> without conflict if practicable.

> In an email _sequence_ a mixture of top posting, in line comments,
> and bottom posting can become very confusing to the reader as the
> sequence progresses.

This only happens if you don't continually reformat and trim their
emails to the current point.

For most of my peers, everyone for the past 12+ years of my using
Usenet/lists/personal/business/email, generally in-line replies along
with me.  Emails tend to get shorter and shorter as you end up
focusing on certain paragraphs and are trimming the entire time.

I wasn't going to continue this - by now rediculously long, "how bad
is top-posting" thread - but I was rather surprised by your email.

I have to say, it's almost as if you don't tend to use in-line
replying much.  It could simply be that you don't deal with
experienced email senders much and so have had little exposure.

It seems like you're one of those rare advocates of top-posting I
mentioned seeing very little of.

I'm guessing you were initially indoctrinated in to a MS top-posting
norm and have, like many, only just started to do in-line emails?  If
it's not too rude a question, can I ask how long you've been using
email ?

Thanks,

Damion

-- 
Damion Yates - email: Damion.Yates at bbc.co.uk - phone: +44 (0) 1628 407759