From: Dominik Riebeling <dominik.riebeling_at_gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2007 23:50:00 +0200

On 8/26/07, Ed Nickl <pioneer4x4_at_comcast.net> wrote:
> won't be replying incorrectly. As for following rules, I am all for it. I
> will have to look up the "Rules" again and see for myself. I honestly
> haven't read them since I 'assumed' they were typical to most email lists.

This list in fact requires you to use a typical way of writing mails:
a compressed, bottom-post style. At least in the open source "world"
(and this includes every list I've seen for open source projects) has
almost the same etiquette as this list. So this is in fact typical,
it's definitely typical to technical lists. Correct quoting (i.e. only
quoting *relevant* parts, not simply quoting the complete mail and
bottom-posting!) speeds up reading and replying to mails noticably.

The typical style for non-technical lists may be different.

> person. I think it is only polite to consider how they read email. I know
> I would hate to listen to an entire post just to get to the new part.

hmm ... why do technical lists usually require you to trim the
original mail to contain only the parts that are relevant? Sighted
people also need to read (or at least skim) the quoted stuff to get
the context ...

It's similar the other way round: it's annoying if you need to scroll
down, re-read the original (especially if it's not a direct reply to
one of your mails) and then puzzle answers, that are given above, with
the questions, that are given below. Doing this only by voice output,
requiring me to remember everything (and possibly complex technical
details) sounds really annoying to me.

Top-posting is also called "Jeopardy-style quoting". I don't think I
need to explain why it's called that way ;-)


 - Dominik
Received on 2007-08-26