suggestion for mailing list

[Nigel Henry]

On Tuesday 12 June 2007 00:15, Oliver Ruebenacker wrote:
>      Dear friends,
>
>   What's wrong with top posting?
>
>      Take care
>      Oliver

Everything is wrong with top posting to a mailing list.

A mailing list isn't a one to one conversation as per using IM, where you're 
having a chat with a friend.

if your replying to a question on a forum, you are presented with a blank 
page. You can just send a reply without any reference to the previous post. 
Normally on a forum I say who I'm replying to, but you can also set a quote 
box up, which gives some indication to what you are replying to.

if you reply on a mailing list, you are not, and I repeat, not, in a one to 
one conversation. 10's, or 100's of folks are reading these lists, and they 
expect to see the thread  running in some sort of progressive way.

You have just replied to Tony Nelson's post by top posting. I am replying to 
your post by posting beneath your query about top posting, and beneath that 
is Tony's original post.

How the hell can anyone follow a conversation like that???

It's like starting to read a book that starts in chapter 2, then goes to 
chapter 3, then goes to chapter 1.

Just think about it before you reply eh!

I'm obviously wasting my time it replying to this top poster, but what the 
hell.

Nigel.
>
> On 6/11/07, Tony Nelson <tonynelson at georgeanelson.com> wrote:
> > At 11:52 AM -0700 6/11/07, Les wrote:
> > >Hi, everyone,
> > >       I remember the welcome message from older bulletin boards, which
> > > gave you some info about the board and its uses/customs/guidelines.  It
> > > seems to me that we could do new posters a favor by sending them such a
> > > message when they join the list.  The subject line should be something
> > > like Getting the most out of fedora-list.
> > >
> > >       Text something like:
> > >
> > >       Basics:
> > >  This list is meant to help you get the best from your fedora
> > >installation.  People here will help you find and fix problems, guide
> > >you to best practices, and generally share their knowledge with you.  In
> > >return you should contribute what you learn.  As you become comfortable
> > >with fedora, it is desirable to add to the information used to improve
> > >and maintain the system through bugzilla (this should be a link to a
> > >document describing how to setup bugzilla and how to report bugs).
> >
> >  ...
> >
> > >What do you all think?
> >
> > Basics should also include:
> >
> >     No top posting -- reply at the end or interspersed; trim parts
> >         you aren't replying to.
> >
> >     No HTML emails -- post and reply in plain text.
> >
> > Perhaps it could be made shorter by being more brief about smart questios
> > and providing a link to <http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html>
> > .
> >
> > At some point this will probably have to be sent to the list maintainer,
> > if there is any reasonable agreement that it is a good idea.  It might
> > need to visit fedora-devel-list as well (or some other list?).
> > --
> > ____________________________________________________________________
> > TonyN.:'                       <mailto:tonynelson at georgeanelson.com>
> >       '                              <http://www.georgeanelson.com/>
> >
> > --
> > fedora-list mailing list
> > fedora-list at redhat.com
> > To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
>
> --
> Oliver Ruebenacker, Post-Doc Researcher
> Theoretical Biological Physics and Soft Statistical Mechanics
> Cell Biology at UConn Health Center and Physics at Harvard
> http://people.deas.harvard.edu/~oliver/