[TriLUG] Digression: Top- vs Bottom-posting

[Paul D. Boyle]

Hi All,

I am coming late to this thread so forgive me if this has already been
pointed out.

Brian Henning wrote (quoting someone else > >):
> 
> > For pure bottom posting you've got a point. On the other hand, my
> > preference is for in-context posting
> 
> Ack!  This is in no way a personal attack..  But I think trying to find
> needles of reply scattered through the haystack of back-quoted thread is the
> worst...

Actually, this is what is advocated in RFC 1855 (Netiquette Guidelines).
For example, the Netiquette guidelines suggest:

- Be brief without being overly terse.  When replying to a message,
      include enough original material to be understood but no more. It
      is extremely bad form to simply reply to a message by including
      all the previous message: edit out all the irrelevant material.

and further on, in the section referring to "one to many" (i.e mailing
lists and news groups) communication:

 - If you are sending a reply to a message or a posting be sure you
      summarize the original at the top of the message, or include just
      enough text of the original to give a context.  This will make
      sure readers understand when they start to read your response.
      Since NetNews, especially, is proliferated by distributing the
      postings from one host to another, it is possible to see a
      response to a message before seeing the original.  Giving context
      helps everyone.  But do not include the entire original!

In case anyone is interested in the complete RFC, here is the URL:
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1855.html

While RFC 1855 is no officially adopted standard, I think it does
summarize the wisdom accumulated from early USENET/internet days when
conservation of band width and disk space were of more concern than 
apparently they are today.

Paul

-- 
Paul D. Boyle			    |	boyle at laue.chem.ncsu.edu
Director, X-ray Structural Facility |	phone: (919) 515-7362
Department of Chemistry - Box 8204  |	FAX:   (919) 515-8909
North Carolina State University     |	http://www.xray.ncsu.edu  
Raleigh, NC, 27695-8204