top posting (was Audio/Video Problems)

[David Lang]

On Mon, 7 Jan 2013, Stephen Morris wrote:

> 
> On 01/06/2013 11:10 AM, Basil Chupin wrote:
>> On 06/01/13 08:19, Lindsay Mathieson wrote:
>>> On Sat, 5 Jan 2013 12:43:15 PM Gene Heskett wrote:
>>>>   Go away, this list doesn't need you.
>>> Gene, you are the problem here.
>> 
>> I don't think so.
>> 
>> Those who top post are the problem here.
> I've seen these arguments on other mailing lists as well. It is standard 
> business etiquette, in every organization I have worked in, to top post. If 
> you do not top post then your mail does not get read and is moved directly to 
> the trash can. So in my opinion the problem is mail lists that refuse to 
> conform to standard business mail etiquette.

The thing people on both sides need to recognize is that there are times when 
each approach is the "right" approach to take.

In business, you have managers who are overworked and flooeded with messages, 
they need to be able to tell at a glance if the message is worth reading. This 
not only means top posting, it means that your first paragraph needs to tell 
them what they need to know about the e-mail.

However, this approach fails miserably for technical discussions where you are 
responding to multiple points in messages. Top posting also has a strong 
tendancy to encourage people to never trim messages, so the longer the thread 
the longer the e-mail.

This is why "business etiquette" is to top post, but almost all opensource 
related mailing lists dislike top posting and prefer inline comments or bottom 
posting.

It's not that either side needs to 'convert to the one true way', it's that 
people need to recognize that they should use the appropriate approach for the 
appropriate lists, and that newcomers to the open source world are going to be 
bringing habits with them, many of which they have never thought about, they 
have just been told 'this is the way to do things'

So accept that while almost all opensource lists prefer bottom posting, some 
people will top post. mention it to them in a PS while you are helping them and 
they will be receptive to change.

Don't be dogmatic about it, either in harassing people who post 'incorrectly' or 
in insisting on posting the 'correct' way, even in places where the local policy 
is different.


Think of top posting vs bottom posting as you would code style guidelines. If 
someone presents code that has spaces instead of tabs (or tabs instead of 
spaces), and puts the braces in the wrong place and has linex that extend to 90 
characters long, are you going to tell them to get lost because they are an 
idiot who can't even format their code 'correctly'? or are you going to look at 
their code and either accept it (reformatting after it's acceted), or thank them 
for it and ask them to reformat it?

and if you are working in some codebase that has a different style, are you 
going to try to submit a patch in your "one true" format? or will you try to 
make your patch look similar to the code around it?

David Lang
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