Mail Formats (was Re: An Elfly Reminder)

[Daniel R. Tobias]

> Random832:
> I think it's a mistake to view top-posting as being a problem _in and
> of itself_. It could, in theory, be very effective to write a
> well-organized message (regardless of anything else, interleaved
> posting encourages poor organization) without any quoting or
> paraphrasing except when absolutely necessary, and include the text of
> the original message (without any second-level quotes unless
> absolutely necessary), or at least the part that's being responded to,
> at the bottom for reference. The only problem is that it's so easy to
> forget to remove the second-level quotes.

Dan T.:
Really?  I've always regarded one of the strong points in favor of
interleaved posting as being that it encourages *good* organization,
as well as the exercise of reading comprehension skills and
encouraging relevancy of replies.  In order to prepare a message for
posting this way, you need to carefully trim the quoted material, and
separate it into its major parts beneath which you intend to reply,
and then if your reply is in fact a non-sequitir, this fact is clearly
evident.  On the other hand, top-posting encourages a style where no
organization is necessary; you just attach the whole mess of the
original message (and perhaps the whole thread before it) without
doing anything to sort it out into parts; and, if your reply is
irrelevant and fails to answer the original questions, this fact is
buried pretty deeply.

-- 
Dan