Re: Reply Top Posting

I am doing what I like, top-posting, which is what you need to do if you
run Outlook (a requirement at work). Threading is very poor on Outlook,
and the stupid gui takes up a lot of screen real-estate. So you need to
do two things that really annoy UNIX users and which used to really
annoy me:

One, top post, so you can see what the most recent reply is.

Two, leave the entire thread because you're never going to be able to
find the previous emails because of the broken threading (and the volume
of email I get.)

Also, you curse the "clever" people who leave comments inline because
Outlook displays things incorrectly.

I work for a large company and finding another job is non-trivial, so
there are reasons I've had to modify my behaviors and now I just wonder
why there still are people who have the time to complain about
top-posting.

On Thu, 27 Nov 2008, Lucio Chiappetti wrote:

> On Wed, 26 Nov 2008, M.RossARR wrote:
>
>> While reply top posting seems wrong, it is a common habit for most
>
> Me too, I hate top posting (and full quoting too)
> http://sax.iasf-milano.inaf.it/~lucio/Procmail/noquotenohtml.html
>
>> Pine & Alpine offers the signature to be at the top or bottom via:
>> I will assume most users set it for bottom! Makes sense!
>
> I have it set to signature at bottom. However I might appreciate that 
> somebody sets signature at top when FORWARDING correspondence :
>
>   [writes new message at top ABOVE signature]
>   signature at top
>   entire forwarded message
>
>> Yet when reply is triggered, the cursor is always found at the top
>> waiting to type, so off goes the writer top posting! It's natural!
>
> Not for me ... I consider natural to do what follows WHEN REPLYING. Composer 
> starts with
>
>   Original Addressee wrote on Date:
>   >
>   > message with indentation suffix
>   > in its entirety
>   > for many lines
>   >
>   signature at bottom
>
> The what I do is
>
>   [possible brief introduction added on top]
>   Original Addressee wrote on Date:
>   >
>   > message with indentation suffix
>   [ snipped and interspersed with my comments]
>   > for not so many lines
>   [ snipped and interspersed with my comments]
>   signature at bottom
>
> I.e. I start at top, go through the original message, snip the parts I'm not 
> going to reply, and insert my comments to those I leave in. THIS seems 
> natural to me.
>
>> May I suggest to whoever, for a future update (I understand Pine is
>> dead so Alpine), if technically possible - being software it should
>> be, the cursor be programmed to start in position for reply just
>> above the signature block a line or two, which would normally be at
>
> If anybody is going to follow your suggestion, I'd modify it (in the spirit 
> of pine) to be an option.
>
>

-- 
Hisashi T Fujinaka - htodd-wH//tIO/JpFWk0Htik3J/[email protected]
BSEE(6/86) + BSChem(3/95) + BAEnglish(8/95) + MSCS(8/03) + $2.50 = latte