shraptor <shraptor@???> wrote:

> I must admit I am really clueless to what is considered good practice in mailing-lists.
...
> I am not rude on purpose but I truly don't know mailing-list style of interaction.
> Should I delete this or keep this? Write here or write there?

In "days of old" it was accepted netiquette that when replying to an email, you would quote enough of the original text to give the context for what you are writing, and then add your reply after the question/statement. The very act of trimming the quoted material is, IMO, useful in itself in that it makes the writer think about what is and isn't important to set the context - sometimes that may just a one liner, sometimes it may need selected bits from several pervious quotes.

Then along came Microsoft and inflicted Outlook on the world. This defaulted to quoting the entire message and leaving the cursor at the top of the window ready to type. This was at a time when the internet as a mass communication tool was taking off, and so there was a mass of new users coming on-line who had a tool that defaulted to "doing it badly" (like a lot of stuff from Microsoft).

At least Outlook doesn't actively stop you doing it right - unlike certain other systems (Gmail has been mentioned). "The tool I use doesn't allow ..." is (IMO) a rather poor excuse when there is no compulsion whatsoever to use a specific tool. Even Gmail supports using an IMAP client so if their web client doesn't work properly, you can still use Gmail while doing things right. Complaining loudly and often to Google that their stuff is broken would also be a good idea - but I fear the few of us who care enough to say anything are just noise in the background and will be ignored no matter what we say.

Of course, because all the excess quoted material is off the bottom of the screen, it's out of sight and out of mind - so doesn't get trimmed. Hence when you see emails that, after a few rounds, can get to be hundreds of lines long (complete with dozens of quoted signatures) for a one line reply.

IMO the reason for not top posting is summed up thus (I didn't write it) :
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

In real life, if someone asks a question, it's natural for an answer to come after it. A non linear timeline isn't something we are used to - that's only for science fiction.

The thing is, bottom posting - though really bottom posting is just a specific case of inline posting - suits pretty well any situation. Top posting often doesn't, which is why you'll often see messages in "the top posting world" where someone wants to reply point by point and starts with a top posted line something like "comments in red" (they have to use colour, because the same bit of crapware that brought us top posting is also crap at quoting properly) and then proceed to post inline.


> It's like it's only for those initiated in the secret art?

It shouldn't feel like that. It's not secret, though good writing is an art.


I agree with Rainer
Rainer Weikusat <rainerweikusat@???> wrote:

> 'Top posting' vs 'bottom posting' is a false dichotomy (could also be
> regarded as strawman)

For a lot of users it's simply that no-one ever taught them proper netiquette and they just assume that the default in what ever tool they use must be correct and/or they just follow what everyone else seems to do.
But for many I do suspect there's an element of laziness. I accept that for some they are busy doing important stuff, but for many I do simply think it's a "can't be bothered, I'll bash it out and get on with what's important to ME".

My view is that, especially if asking for help, one should put some effort into making your messages easy to read. That ony takes one person's time - if it's hard to read then it may take time from tens, hundred, or even thousands of people to follow it. If you want someone to help you, then it's good practice to make it easy for them to do so. If you write in a manner that suggests that you do not value that other person's time, then why should they give some of it up to help you ?