10 ms·

We have lost this battle, but keep fighting the good fight. We've also lost to top-posting and JavaScript.

by js2 9y ago

Spivak 9y ago
Top posting only won in places where everyone uses Outlook. Mailing lists still use quoted style.
- lozf 9y ago
  Gmail also had a big hand in the reduction of top posting, by hiding the quoted message by default (click the little '...' icon to see it). This means that replies in-line, or below quoted text are instantly hidden and then you get complaints from the technically challenged who insist the email you sent was blank. I tried to educate and fight back for a long time, but too many important things were lost to those who insist on writing right where the cursor appears instead of taking a moment to position it thoughtfully, and alas the rest is history.
  - hota_mazi 9y ago
    The fact that Gmail hides the quoted portion actually encourages people to use top posting more. Which is a great thing. I know, not a popular opinion here, but top posting saves a lot of time in catching up with long email chains. If you don't agree, pick an old style mailing-list like a Linux kernel discussion, choose a discussion with 20+ emails in and read it from top to bottom. You'll quickly realize how exhausting inline quoting is.
    - wahern 9y ago
      Less exhausting than reading each of those 20+ emails separately. For any conversation of substance, you need the relevant context before you can understand the reply. If context isn't required, then don't include it. Inline replies act as a forcing function, directing people to reply to the substance of what was said. That necessarily includes eliding irrelevant bits, which is often the most helpful aspect. Neither top posting nor bottom posting help emphasize substance. In high quality forums inline posting is extremely useful for both reader and author. For the Outlook and Twitter set, it's a pointless debate.
      - hota_mazi 9y ago
        Either you're part of an active email chain (e.g. happening over a period of a few hours), in which case you have the context. You don't need to read it over and over again, so the best place to put it is below the signature. Top posting wins here. Or you're catching up on a discussion that happened in the past, reading each email one after the other. Again, the context is secondary, so the best place is to put it below the signature. Again, top posting wins. For these rare emails where specific answers need to be positioned below some specific context, the writer of the email needs to have the discipline to put it there, and this can be achieved with top posting as well. Inline quoting has really no good reason to exist in most email chains.
        fiddlerwoaroof 9y ago
        There are two relevant senses of context: what has already happened in the email thread and what a given person thinks he is responding to. Top posting is better for an outsider who is just reading through the thread while inline replies help the people in the thread understand where a given author is coming from.
    - zeveb 9y ago
      That's pretty ridiculous. Inline quoting permits folks to trim the replied-to text to only the relevant portion. There's no need for each email to carry with it a complete record of the conversation up to the point that it was written. If you don't agree, keep on reading. hota_mazi writes: > The fact that Gmail hides the quoted portion actually encourages people to use top posting more. > Which is a great thing. > I know, not a popular opinion here, but top posting saves a lot of time in catching up with long email chains. > If you don't agree, pick an old style mailing-list like a Linux kernel discussion, choose a discussion with 20+ emails in and read it from top to bottom. You'll quickly realize how exhausting inline quoting is. > lozf writes: >> Gmail also had a big hand in the reduction of top posting, by hiding the quoted message by default (click the little '...' icon to see it). >> This means that replies in-line, or below quoted text are instantly hidden and then you get complaints from the technically challenged who insist the email you sent was blank. >> I tried to educate and fight back for a long time, but too many important things were lost to those who insist on writing right where the cursor appears instead of taking a moment to position it thoughtfully, and alas the rest is history. >> Spivak writes: >>> Top posting only won in places where everyone uses Outlook. Mailing lists still use quoted style. >>> js2 writes: >>>> We have lost this battle, but keep fighting the good fight. We've also lost to top-posting and JavaScript. >>>> Sir_Cmpwn writes: >>>>> Maybe the answer is to return to sending plaintext emails? HTML emails are an abomanation. Rather than extend them, just ditch them.
  - lozf 9y ago
    Of course I meant "... in the growth of top posting...", I think most of you got the gist that I'm not a fan. 100a I must express myself clearly when posting. <return><esc>
- akvadrako 9y ago
  Some old-school lists might have a consistent style, but normal-people lists are more often than not top-quoted. Almost all email clients default to top-quoting, and bottom quoting requires more work, because you need to cut out irrelevant parts. It's not easy to get people who have never bottom-quoted to start.
jaaron 9y ago
top-posting still makes me sad.
- craftyguy 9y ago
  Why? I grew up top posting (thanks to web mail clients), and personally I find having to scroll past tons of old messages in a thread to find the latest message is weird. Why is that preferred? I feel like I'm missing out on some big secret that top posting kills. Edit: Ok, I found this: http://www.idallen.com/topposting.html http://www.idallen.com/topposting.html I'm convinced that 'bottom posting' is superior.
  - hota_mazi 9y ago
    Bottom posting would be okay but what opponents of top posting are advocating is "inline quoting", which makes reading long chains of emails absolutely exhausting and obfuscated. Top posting won for a reason: it saves everyone a lot of time.
    - craftyguy 9y ago
      > which makes reading long chains of emails absolutely exhausting and obfuscated. How do you mean? I've seen bottom posting be essentially abused, by folks that quote the entire preceeding email (and even others before it) before typing their 1 line reply. Or worse, folks that quote a giant thread and insert 1-2 line responses throughout the quoting, which require the reader to hunt for them. It seems that those cases could have been avoided by just cherry picking & quoting only what you wanted to respond to. Or is there some other situation you have in mind with your response?
      - hota_mazi 9y ago
        > How do you mean? Because you keep reading the same thing over and over again while all you want to do is read the new content: === a === > a b === > > a > b c === Another problem with inline quoting is that people are often lazy and quote everything, which means you need to scroll down a lot to hunt down for the new content.
AlexAffe 9y ago
At least with javascript you have the power to just not run it. As with images: Just don't download them. If what message you received breaks, so be it.
- abricot 9y ago
  If you only want a small part of the internet to work you can disable javascript. Otherwise it is a huge pain.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> We've also lost to top-posting and JavaScript. While certain popular webmail clients push top-posting hard, I still see a lot more inline quoting in professional contexts, even where most users are using a client biased to top posting, than I see top posting.

We have lost this battle, but keep fighting the good fight. We've also lost to top-posting and JavaScript.

by js2 9y ago

We have lost this battle, but keep fighting the good fight. We've also lost to top-posting and JavaScript.

Spivak 9y ago

Top posting only won in places where everyone uses Outlook. Mailing lists still use quoted style.

lozf 9y ago
Gmail also had a big hand in the reduction of top posting, by hiding the quoted message by default (click the little '...' icon to see it). This means that replies in-line, or below quoted text are instantly hidden and then you get complaints from the technically challenged who insist the email you sent was blank. I tried to educate and fight back for a long time, but too many important things were lost to those who insist on writing right where the cursor appears instead of taking a moment to position it thoughtfully, and alas the rest is history.
- hota_mazi 9y ago
  The fact that Gmail hides the quoted portion actually encourages people to use top posting more. Which is a great thing. I know, not a popular opinion here, but top posting saves a lot of time in catching up with long email chains. If you don't agree, pick an old style mailing-list like a Linux kernel discussion, choose a discussion with 20+ emails in and read it from top to bottom. You'll quickly realize how exhausting inline quoting is.
  - wahern 9y ago
    Less exhausting than reading each of those 20+ emails separately. For any conversation of substance, you need the relevant context before you can understand the reply. If context isn't required, then don't include it. Inline replies act as a forcing function, directing people to reply to the substance of what was said. That necessarily includes eliding irrelevant bits, which is often the most helpful aspect. Neither top posting nor bottom posting help emphasize substance. In high quality forums inline posting is extremely useful for both reader and author. For the Outlook and Twitter set, it's a pointless debate.
    - hota_mazi 9y ago
      Either you're part of an active email chain (e.g. happening over a period of a few hours), in which case you have the context. You don't need to read it over and over again, so the best place to put it is below the signature. Top posting wins here. Or you're catching up on a discussion that happened in the past, reading each email one after the other. Again, the context is secondary, so the best place is to put it below the signature. Again, top posting wins. For these rare emails where specific answers need to be positioned below some specific context, the writer of the email needs to have the discipline to put it there, and this can be achieved with top posting as well. Inline quoting has really no good reason to exist in most email chains.
      - fiddlerwoaroof 9y ago
        There are two relevant senses of context: what has already happened in the email thread and what a given person thinks he is responding to. Top posting is better for an outsider who is just reading through the thread while inline replies help the people in the thread understand where a given author is coming from.
  - zeveb 9y ago
    That's pretty ridiculous. Inline quoting permits folks to trim the replied-to text to only the relevant portion. There's no need for each email to carry with it a complete record of the conversation up to the point that it was written. If you don't agree, keep on reading. hota_mazi writes: > The fact that Gmail hides the quoted portion actually encourages people to use top posting more. > Which is a great thing. > I know, not a popular opinion here, but top posting saves a lot of time in catching up with long email chains. > If you don't agree, pick an old style mailing-list like a Linux kernel discussion, choose a discussion with 20+ emails in and read it from top to bottom. You'll quickly realize how exhausting inline quoting is. > lozf writes: >> Gmail also had a big hand in the reduction of top posting, by hiding the quoted message by default (click the little '...' icon to see it). >> This means that replies in-line, or below quoted text are instantly hidden and then you get complaints from the technically challenged who insist the email you sent was blank. >> I tried to educate and fight back for a long time, but too many important things were lost to those who insist on writing right where the cursor appears instead of taking a moment to position it thoughtfully, and alas the rest is history. >> Spivak writes: >>> Top posting only won in places where everyone uses Outlook. Mailing lists still use quoted style. >>> js2 writes: >>>> We have lost this battle, but keep fighting the good fight. We've also lost to top-posting and JavaScript. >>>> Sir_Cmpwn writes: >>>>> Maybe the answer is to return to sending plaintext emails? HTML emails are an abomanation. Rather than extend them, just ditch them.
- lozf 9y ago
  Of course I meant "... in the growth of top posting...", I think most of you got the gist that I'm not a fan. 100a I must express myself clearly when posting. <return><esc>
akvadrako 9y ago
Some old-school lists might have a consistent style, but normal-people lists are more often than not top-quoted. Almost all email clients default to top-quoting, and bottom quoting requires more work, because you need to cut out irrelevant parts. It's not easy to get people who have never bottom-quoted to start.

jaaron 9y ago

top-posting still makes me sad.

craftyguy 9y ago
Why? I grew up top posting (thanks to web mail clients), and personally I find having to scroll past tons of old messages in a thread to find the latest message is weird. Why is that preferred? I feel like I'm missing out on some big secret that top posting kills. Edit: Ok, I found this: http://www.idallen.com/topposting.html http://www.idallen.com/topposting.html I'm convinced that 'bottom posting' is superior.
- hota_mazi 9y ago
  Bottom posting would be okay but what opponents of top posting are advocating is "inline quoting", which makes reading long chains of emails absolutely exhausting and obfuscated. Top posting won for a reason: it saves everyone a lot of time.
  - craftyguy 9y ago
    > which makes reading long chains of emails absolutely exhausting and obfuscated. How do you mean? I've seen bottom posting be essentially abused, by folks that quote the entire preceeding email (and even others before it) before typing their 1 line reply. Or worse, folks that quote a giant thread and insert 1-2 line responses throughout the quoting, which require the reader to hunt for them. It seems that those cases could have been avoided by just cherry picking & quoting only what you wanted to respond to. Or is there some other situation you have in mind with your response?
    - hota_mazi 9y ago
      > How do you mean? Because you keep reading the same thing over and over again while all you want to do is read the new content: === a === > a b === > > a > b c === Another problem with inline quoting is that people are often lazy and quote everything, which means you need to scroll down a lot to hunt down for the new content.

AlexAffe 9y ago

At least with javascript you have the power to just not run it. As with images: Just don't download them. If what message you received breaks, so be it.

abricot 9y ago
If you only want a small part of the internet to work you can disable javascript. Otherwise it is a huge pain.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> We've also lost to top-posting and JavaScript. While certain popular webmail clients push top-posting hard, I still see a lot more inline quoting in professional contexts, even where most users are using a client biased to top posting, than I see top posting.