3 Jan
2014
3 Jan
'14
4:21 a.m.
Q <lists@...> writes:
I've never encountered bottom-posting outside of
Linux mailing lists
(admittedly I'm not on any non-Linux mailing lists). Nobody has done it
in any place that I've worked, or at any other organisation that I've
communicated with by email, either privately or at work.
FWIW, my policy for my own emails has been, for years:
- Quote ONLY the relevant points to which I'm responding. Delete ALL other
quoted material before sending.
- Place my reply immediately after the relevant point. The reader sees
"point - response" in that order. This is logical.
It would be ludicrous to have to scroll through
months, maybe even
years, of earlier messages (which need to be there for context, to refer
to WHEN required) to get to what is the most important bit of
information -- the latest bit, the thing that the person is saying now
in response to the previous message.
Keeping old material for context makes sense in an email thread *which is
not otherwise archived*.
Mailing lists are archived, so your point does not hold here.
It seems to me that the only problem is that
bottom-posting clashes with
how people actually write messages in every other sphere of life -- it
(bottom-posting) is an outdated practice that needs to die and allow
mailing lists to move with the times.
This is pretty close to saying that mailing lists themselves are behind the
times. That might be true, actually.
hjh