Forgotten where to access the Red Hat forums

[Jeff Kinz]

On Wed, Aug 11, 2004 at 01:59:37AM +0000, jlopes151 at comcast.net wrote:
> So, explain what your saying here?
> 
> >By the way, bottom-posting is preferred on most of the Red Hat forums 

Rick is saying that you are using the wrong format for replying to an 
email list.

Instead of putting your further responses at the top of the email, where
it is out of order, delete the no longer needed bits of the email and
place your responses after the points you are responding to.

This is covered by the Internet Engineering Task Force, which is the
group responsible for the "how to do it" of the internet.
Please see this document, under the section "one to many communication":
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1855.html



Also - to fix outlook or outlook express so that these things can be
done automatically for you:

To fix outlook express:
http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/oe-quotefix/

To fix Outlook:
http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/outlook-quotefix/


20 years ago I thought topposting was better too, but after seeing the
logic presented on why bottom or interleaved posting is better for email
list postings and usenet posting I had to agree that bottom posting is a
"Good Thing"(TM).

For person to person email top posting is fine, in fact it is often
better because the two people involved remain familiar with the issue at
hand.

However, when posting to an email list you are "conversing" with
hundreds of other people who, while they are actively following your
thread, they are also actively following many other threads and
therefore cannot remain intimately familiar with the issues in your
thread. Top posting forces the many to hunt up and down in the email to
find the points being referred to so they can follow the flow of the
logic in the "conversation".

So, your lack of effort is multiplied and transferred to many many other
people who really shouldn't have to make up for your lack of effort.

Bottom posting and interleaving on email lists are a simple matter of
courtesy for your fellow list members. Not doing it shows a distinct
lack of regard for their time, effort and value.

When having a person to person email dialog, top posting is fine.




-- 
Linux/Open Source.  Now all your base belongs to you, for free.
============================================================
Idealism:  "Realism applied over a longer time period"

Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA.