[theforum] mailing list rules (content)

[Luther, Ron]

>> John Handelaar wrote:
>> Digest readers, especially (the freaks), are dealt a cruel injustice
>> by top-posters

>>>Neuro noted:
>>>A. Because it breaks the logical sequence of discussion.
>>>Q. Why is top posting bad?


For the lists we operate here at evolt, I agree with John and Neuro ... top-posting is inconsiderate and, because of that, should be considered 'bad form'.

I see this as a difference in medium.  The evolt lists should really be considered threaded forums that happen to be distributed via email.  It's an F2O or a /. sent to me comment by comment.  In that setting, I think <pithy snippet>/<poignant response> is the expected reply model.

However, I can easily understand if someone were to take the viewpoint that 'email is email' whether it comes from evolt or not.  I think that would certainly lead to a temptation to top-post since that response model seems more commonplace (in my humble experience of course) in the corporate slime-trail email environment. There may be occasional deviations where you can insert comments in-line in a different color and/or font and/or font size, (in the corporate world - not in our plain text evolt world), but in general top-posting seems to be the norm.


Agreeably (how odd is that!),
RonL.