Rich Freeman on 16 Sep 2016 11:48:40 -0700


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Re: [PLUG] Top-posting (was: Replacement mailing list idea)


On Fri, Sep 16, 2016 at 11:56 AM, JP Vossen <jp@jpsdomain.org> wrote:
>
> Wait, what?  You mean the shitty *Windows* software that mostly started this
> mess?  Even if you are stuck using that crap (and I am at $WORK), that's not
> excuse not to use better tools and do it right when not at work, and
> *especially* on a Linux list!
>

Well, to be fair GMail also has this problem, not that it makes
bottom-posting impossible as evidenced by this reply.  That said, I
have heard that Gmail makes a mess of the reference headers, which is
bad.

>> Speaking of ambiguity, trim the quoted context to material pertaining
>> to your reply: Get rid of all the rest. This is a must whether you're
>> top, bottom or interleave posting.
>
> Especially all the footer cruft, both the ludicrous disclaimers some
> corporate accounts require (and I'd like to argue you never need to use one
> on those on this list, but I can see some arguments for it), and all the
> mailing list footers.  Nuke that crap, it's wasted bandwidth, archive space
> and importantly, reading time.

++

If your reply is two lines of new content, and the whole email is 200
lines, you're probably doing it wrong.  That isn't 100% certain as I
have found it appropriate to leave content in when it is relevant to
even a short reply, but for the most part it is far better to err on
the side of over-trimming.  Heck, if all MTAs properly set and used
the reference header you could probably get away with a fair number of
emails that didn't quote anything.

-- 
Rich
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