[chromium-discuss] Netiquette: Top Posting

[Aaron Toponce]

A: Trim the message, leaving appropriate context, then reply below.
Q: How should I reply to email then?
A: No.
Q: Should I include quotations after my reply?
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

see also: http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1855.html
http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/T/top-post.html

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[Caleb Eggensperger]

Good luck? :-P I don't think it's terribly important, as, like you, I use gmail, and gmail takes care of that basically on its own. I say reply inline if it clarifies what you're replying to, but otherwise, top posting is fine. There's no official policy here, and this is a public mailing list.

[forgot to reply to all]

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[krtulmay]

Hi Aaron,

Your initial post may seem "error-written" and "reversed" because of
its contrived writing, but if I had actually received that thread in
normal, chronological question and answer order, even with top
posting, I would have understood the meaning and thread of the
postings.

Yes, top posting is reversed from the order in which people normally
read, but that is only a problem if you start reading a thread in the
middle.

Threads make sense for those reading the entire thread.

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[Aaron Toponce]

On 04/19/2010 09:24 PM, Caleb Eggensperger wrote:
> Good luck? :-P I don't think it's terribly important, as, like you, I
> use gmail, and gmail takes care of that basically on its own. I say
> reply inline if it clarifies what you're replying to, but otherwise, top
> posting is fine. There's no official policy here, and this is a public
> mailing list.

Replying inline is most appropriate in almost every situation. When it's
not appropriate to reply inline, bottom posting is then preferred.

Unfortunately, the Gmail web interface is horribly broken in this
regard. It automatically places the cursor at the top of the reply,
teaching people the bad habits of not trimming, and top posting.
Hopefully, Google fixes this bug.

[Aaron Toponce]

On 04/20/2010 01:05 AM, krtulmay wrote:
> Your initial post may seem "error-written" and "reversed" because of
> its contrived writing, but if I had actually received that thread in
> normal, chronological question and answer order, even with top
> posting, I would have understood the meaning and thread of the
> postings.

My post is perfectly analogous to top-posting. The English language
reads left-to-right, top-to-bottom. Why people think reading
bottom-to-top is appropriate, is beyond me.

Further, top-posting encourages people not to trim, leaving appropriate
context for their reply. As such, miles and miles of replies and
forwards lie beneath their reply, sometimes with the context buried deep
between all the email metadata. This is just silly.

> Yes, top posting is reversed from the order in which people normally
> read, but that is only a problem if you start reading a thread in the
> middle.

It's a problem regardless.

[Andev]

On Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 5:55 PM, Aaron Toponce <aaron....@gmail.com> wrote:
> It's a problem regardless.

+1

[Alexander Skwar]

-1

It pretty much depends on your MUA. With eg. Gmail, top posting
isn't much of a problem, since Gmail by default hides the quoted
text.

Some 10 years ago, I also was VERY much against top posting. But
IMO most of the arguments simply lost validity over time. For example,
the traffic argument is just non existant anymore. And with such a
reply like I'm writing right now, there isn't much that I could trim from
the original reply. I'm replying to the whole article, not just some sections
of it.

Additionally, there are also MUAs, which make it pretty hard to do
"correct" quoting (ie. NOT top posting); basically "business" programs
like Lotus Notes and such (Gmail does not belong to this group, IMO).

Regards,
Alexander

2010/4/20 Andev <debi...@gmail.com>

Alexander
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[krtulmay]

No, Aaron, your post is not at all analogous to top-posting. As
mentioned top-posting through *A THREADED DISCUSSION* has a *time*
component and receiving and reading the thread in normal,
chronological order, even with top posting makes perfect sense.
That's why in fact your post is contrived in an attempt to convey what
normally is multiple threaded messages into one message.

The fact is, people are *not* reading bottom-to-top. They are just
reading the new entry at the top of each successive posting.

No, top posting is *not* a problem regardless of situation. Again, it

is only a problem if you start reading a thread in the middle.

The fact is, *this* thread is making *perfect* sense despite all the
top-posting replies. (Yes, you had to have followed the thread from
the beginning, but that is exactly my point about reading each
individual message chronologically.)

[krtulmay]

Also, Aaron, I noticed your GMail email address. Are you reading this
thread through email notifications into GMail?

As Caleb Eggensperger said, GMail also recognizes the *time* component
of a *threaded discussion* and will automatically take care of only
showing the top-posted, new reply part of each successive reply *in
the thread*.

That's why top-posting replies makes sense and is readable, but it
does require chronological reading of the entire thread.

I don't disagree with you that reading a top-posted thread in one
static message is a problem. I already said it is only a problem if

you start reading a thread in the middle.

That's why your original post is contrived to simulate the historical
thread (written reversed) using only one static message.

> Chromium Discussion mailing list: chromium-disc...@chromium.org

[Ben]

To illustrate, your example:

> A: Trim the message, leaving appropriate context, then reply below.
> Q: How should I reply to email then?
> A: No.
> Q: Should I include quotations after my reply?
> A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
> Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
> A: Top-posting.
> Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
>
>

Should have been written as such:

> A: Trim the message, leaving appropriate context, then reply below.

> A: No.
> A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
> A: Top-posting.

>> Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?

>> Q: Should I include quotations after my reply?

>> Q: How should I reply to email then?

>> Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
>

That, is perfectly readable. However, for longer posts I can see that
being a problem in some mailing lists. On Google Groups, discussion is
linear, but the quotes are hidden until you un-hide them so there isn't
so much in each message. After you unhide a quote, (I think) nested
quotes are hidden too, so you only have to unhide quotes that you want
to see. If you really want context, you can go to the message which was
quoted and read the whole thing (which you should do if you want to take
part in the conversation anyway).

I haven't used Gmail to read mailing lists, and I don't usually use
Groups either. I read from Thunderbird, which can be configured to
thread messages, and that works pretty well for me. Sometimes messages
get put into the wrong spot, but usually (even if I've deleted part of a
thread) the messages are placed pretty well, giving good context (even
with top-posting).

That said, on other mailing lists, or when having a conversation with
someone via e-mail, you probably shouldn't top-post, or you should ask
the person whether they prefer one way or the other.

On 04/20/2010 10:32 AM, krtulmay wrote:
> No, Aaron, your post is not at all analogous to top-posting. As
> mentioned top-posting through *A THREADED DISCUSSION* has a *time*
> component and receiving and reading the thread in normal,
> chronological order, even with top posting makes perfect sense.
> That's why in fact your post is contrived in an attempt to convey what
> normally is multiple threaded messages into one message.
>

[Ben]

Oops, I accidentally mixed up the order of the 'Q's and 'A's, but you
get the idea. ;)

> Should have been written as such:
>

>> A: Trim the message, leaving appropriate context, then reply below.

>> A: No.
>> A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
>> A: Top-posting.

>>> Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?

>>> Q: Should I include quotations after my reply?

>>> Q: How should I reply to email then?

>>> Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
>>