Maybe it's time for a FAQ? (was Re: [PLUG] I don't get it. What's the big deal with putting the response on top?)

["Paul L. Snyder" <plsnyder@drexel.edu>]

Quoting sean finney <seanius@seanius.net>:

> what the hell is what supposed to mean?  see, if you had bottom posted,
> it would have been much more clear :)

This discussion has happened more than once on this list, and I don't
think that anything new has been dredged over this time.  To summarize:

 1) Nobody is forcing anybody to post a particular way.  This is an
    unmoderated list. 

 2) That said, many (but not all) people on the list prefer reading
    properly trimmed threads with a response following a relevant,
    quoted, properly-attributed portion of the original message.

 3) The absense of a balanced FAQ on this issue seems to make it quite
    easy for a troll (or a careless comment) to stir up a religious war.
    For one, I would be happy if we had a URL on the PLUG website to
    which we could point when the topic comes up.

 4) While I enjoy the blood-warming thrill of a flame war as much as
    the next geek, I suspect it is rather off-putting to newcomers to
    the list.

 5) Certain  (primarily non-Linux/UNIX-based) mail user agents do not
    facilitate bottom-posting with proper quoting.  There are ways to
    improve some of the defecits with some agents, and a list of these
    methods might be helpful.

 7) http://mailformat.dan.info/quoting/top-posting.html seems to be
    fairly balanced.  The author makes the points that

       (A) Top-posting may be better for "linear" threads, such as are
           frequently encountered in office settings.

       (B) Uniformity of mail environments (i.e., everyone is using
           Outlook or Notes) results in less disruption of message
           histories in a message.

       (C) Proper "bottom-posting" is better called "interleaved posting".

       (D) In corporate mail environments, it is important to make sure
           that a newcomer to a thread (i.e., someone who receives a 
           forwarded message) can see the entire history, as 


I hereby volunteer to condense this down into something that may or may
not be suitable as a general FAQ/list protocol answer - a quick summary
with links to other 
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