On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 9:57 AM, Florin Iucha <florin at iucha.net> wrote: > On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 09:42:46AM -0500, James wrote: > > At the time I was told the only approved messages were those sent as > > text only, no html. Several people were really upset that I used html > > in my email. My solution to their problem was to leave the group. > > You probably used a bad MUA that didn't even bother to send a > plain-text version. > > The same way that you think your way of sending HTML mail from a phone > works best for you, I think that reading it in text mode through a SSH > connection works best for me. But if you want to communicate, you > need to send something that we can both see... > > Cheers, > florin > > There comes a time when you (the royal you, not you specifically, florin. Which is to say I'm addressing the point more than the individual here. ) are just being plain stubborn. Clinging to your VT100 terminal emulation over ssh with a MUA that can't render HTML to ASCII and crying out against the individuals who encroach on your self-selected corner of the internet where others like you congregate and bemoan the masses that insist on using new-fangled technology and styles for electronic communication... yeah. Taken to a certain degree that's just being stubborn - there is no moral high ground. It can be argued the html-incompatible-MUA user has self-selected out and is asking everyone else to bend over backwards for him. How is that not selfish and obnoxious? At risk of throwing gas on fire I'll take a moment just to share some thought on the top versus in-line posting topic since that sort of kvetching goes hand-in-hand with this topic and has already occurred in this thread. At a meta-level, the only people hanging onto this point and strongly voicing opinions that will likely go with them to their grave are... the in-line posters. As someone who has been using email since 1990 (that's pre-web, for some of you younger whipper-snappers, and I also recall every machine that was globally visible was in /etc/hosts..), I was once strongly on the in-line side of this debate. That's how everyone did it. And as time went by, and AOL opened up gateways to USENET (and crapped on the Internets by doing so, imho), and the unwashed masses began to participate in online communities, I woke up from my dreams at night with nightmarish visions of top-posting and ... as Netscape and other browser-based mailers encouraged the use of HTML for message composition and formatting, all sorts of unreadable mails spooling across my screen. Teh horrors! Then I got some jobs in professional high-tech environments where, despite the fact we were all gear-heads working on the command-line all day, we were essentially forced to use Outlook/Exchange, though we had unix mboxes too. And we all grumbled a bit but over time a few benefits of top-posting became apparent. * Top posting preserves atomicity. Example: Where [a] and [b] said in the same email by the same person?? ---------------------- >>>>>> Rob Wrote >>>>> Dan Wrote >>>> Rob Wrote >>> Jay Wrote >> Rob Wrote > Dan Wrote >>>>>> Important observation >>>>> Really bad response [a] >>>> Blah blah >>> Wall of text Observation >>>>> Genius comment [b] >>>> Acknowledgement You know, I agree with ... the guy with >>>>> things. ------------------------- Had to think about it, right? I've been CC'd on long threads that have been kicked around during trouble-shooting mode before it became obvious I was a stakeholder or area owner that needed to be engaged. Being able to reconstruct the chain of the email with each response preserved atomically was often times very helpful. The whole history of the conversation was preserved, intact. Sometimes that's really nice. In fact, it's really nice a lot of times. Moving on... * Top posting is faster - Quite often it's just easier to bang out a response without worrying about all the trimming, formatting, etc... At my previous job I got 300 mails a day. The overhead of in-line posting conventions would have made that insufferable. * Top posting encourages not using confusing pronouns whereas inline posting often does lead to ambiguity. Example: Top Posting From: Rob Subject: Next spill cap tactic I think increasing the flow rate of the breach by cutting the riser pipe is a necessary risk to get us to a better initial-condition for the cap. From: Jay Rob - you know if cut the riser pipe the flow rate will be increased temporarily. Example: In-line > Jay wrote: > Rob - you know if we cut the riser pipe the flow rate will be increased temporaily This is a necessary risk to get us to a better initial-condition for the next attempt. ==end example Analysis: Now - this is somewhat artifically constructed, sure. But note that the in-line response took the previously quoted text as setting the subject, and used "this" to refer to the subject defined in the previous text. This (heh) happens with top-posting too... but I have noticed over time it happens more with in-line posting. Using previously written text to define the context for a response that immediately follows is supposed to be one of the vaunted advantages of in-line responses, but in my experience for longer threads it becomes problematic, and thus the "pruning effort" to keep mails shorter and more concise involves editing or paraphrasing text other people wrote. That's not so bad - but it is time consuming. There are other pros and cons, and I bet if you google "inline versus top posting" you will find more hits than google can list in 100 pages. But before you flame me, please understand I'm not trying to convert anyone here. I'm just pointing out that there are objectively some benefits to top-posting, and some benefits to in-lining - each approach has pros and cons. If you like in-line posting, in-line away. Given this is a Linux LUG I'll keep in-lining because that seems to be the culture here and I believe in rolling with the culture when choosing a response style. But.... bashing on other people who do top post from a self-appointed morale high-ground, or just bashing on top-posting in general... I just want to say ... really? You're still fighting that war? You're still in the previous decade? In summary, I'm cool with different opinions. But the outright hostility and immaturity about this particular topic is not becoming to the bright binds that inhabit this list. I'm not trying to sell anyone one way is better than the other - just hoping some people can see perhaps there are two sides to this coin. I'd rather we flame each other about which text editor is best (Suck it, emacs users! :) ). Feel free to call me names now, I guess. Thanks, -Rob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.mn-linux.org/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20100611/ce44b302/attachment-0001.htm