[Coco] Off-topic -- Re: One point of view

[Phill Harvey-Smith]

Wayne Campbell wrote:
> John W. Linville wrote:> Perhaps we can end this off-topic thread
> now?  Please?
> 
> Yes, but I feel I must make one last statement.
> 
>> A: Because we read from top to bottom, left to right. Q: Why should
>> I start my reply below the quoted text?
> 
>> A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read
>> text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
> 
> Quoted text in replies is reference material. Do we put reference
> material at the front of a book, just because we read from  left to
> right, top to bottom? No. Reference material goes at the end of the
> book.

But in a book it is printed once and there is generally no 'reply', I 
think the book analogy is not really applicable here as a mailing list 
is more of a conversation which should be causially obvious, i.e. it 
should be abvious who said what and in what order.

Is's one of the reasons whi I will generally quote under the paragraph I 
am replying to rather than put my replies to everything at the end (or 
the beginning), ok so this email is a bad example, but only really 
replying to one point....

So you would have :

 > Question 1
Answer 1

 > Question 2
Answer 2

Trimming is also important something I see time and time again is 
someone quoting an entire long post, then giving a one line answer to
the last sentence of the post....

Cheers.

Phill.

-- 
Phill Harvey-Smith, Programmer, Hardware hacker, and general eccentric !

"You can twist perceptions, but reality won't budge" -- Rush.