Mailing list woes

[Amedee Van Gasse (Ubuntu)]

On Wed, May 6, 2009 16:54, Roy Smith wrote:

> Some people prefer top posting as they then won't have to scroll down to
> see the response to their question.  But others prefer bottom posting
> because that's the natural flow of asking a question, and then you get an
> answer.


Top posting is usually the preferred style when you have a short
introduction text followed by a long quote that *MUST* be kept in one
piece for whatever reason.


Bottom posting is exactly the same as top posting (and equally annoying):
the original message is left intact and the answer is written at the
bottom.


Interleaved posting is usually the preferred style when a message is
disected into multiple parts. Unneeded parts are deleted and only relevant
quotes remain. Each piece of the answer is written directly below the
quote.
For example:

> This is the first part of an email. The first argument is explained.
This is an answer to the first argument.

> This is the second part of the question.
This is the answer to the second part.

> This is the third and final part.
This is the answer to the final part.
A very long signature has been cut away, to avoid rerereduplication of
mail footers.


On a technical mailing list like this, we usually split up a problem in
small, manageable parts. We give solutions for the little sub-problems,
and hopefully the original poster can piece the puzzle together. Because
of this workflow, interleaved posting is the better thing to do. (My two
cents)



I can't repeat this enough: I dislike bottom posting as much as I dislike
top posting.

-- 
Amedee