[Wylug-discuss] List Etiquette: Top Posting vs. Bottom Posting

[Mark P. Conmy]

On Sun, 28 Oct 2007, Lee Evans wrote:
>
>> Neither IMAP nor POP downloads line-by-line.  POP will download the
>> whole message whether you read it or not, IMAP might be able to save
>> time by splitting headers and body, but it will still download the whole
>> body if you start to read a message.  You might save some time (assuming
>> you never have to read context) with a webmail browser, but you won't
>> save bandwidth.  This is a non-argument.
>
> That's not true - a large proportion of mobile devices allow you to
> configure a POP/IMAP email account and specify a finite limit on the amount
> of message you download, usually in KB.

Mea culpa - must brush up on my RFCs.

> It's perfectly feasible to set this pretty low in the expectation that,
> with top-posted replies, you're going to get the bit you need and not
> another copy of content you've probably downloaded in a previous message.

Well, fine - but should I use an inferior way of communicating just
because someone might be using a bandwidth limited device?  Given I'm
already trimming posts, should it be a big deal?

> On that basis, top-posted responses would become favourable. However, I
> don't think this should be a consideration of the sender - most people
> aren't reading mails on mobile devices nor paying per-KB so I don't think
> it's fair to expect that be a consideration during composition.

Nor is it kind on the disk space of multiple recipients.  If trimmed,
the limit isn't that helpful in any case.

Mark

P.S. I know you didn't put attributions to any of them, but mixing up
      replies to multiple posts without making it explicit is a recipe
      for confusion.