Re: More user-visible goals

Martin Duerst <[email protected]> Wed, 25 Feb 2004 14:56:48 -0500
Newsgroups gmane.mail.ng
Message-ID <4.2.0.58.J.20040225144328.071c76c0@localhost>
At 11:07 04/02/25 -0500, Bruce Lilly wrote:

>- users want to be able to see relevant related material in context, in an
>   appropriate order of presentation, and without having to read
>   irrelevant parts of  previous exchanges.  [Yes, that means "top-posting
>   is abhorrent" (possibly excepting languages where reading bottom-to-top
>   is normal)]

Sorry for the sidetracking, but there are some very good and some very
bad examples of "top-posting", and some very good and very bad reasons
for it.

The worst reason is simple lazyness. The best reason is accessibility;
it's much easier for e.g. blind people to start with the new text and
go down if necessary than the other way round.

The good cases are cases where the new text is general, but where the
previous mail is left there because somebody may prefer to scroll down
to remind them of the context rather than figure out otherwise.

Regards,   Martin.