RE: Top-Posting And Guideline 3.1

-----Original Message-----
From: Roberto Scano - IWA/HWG [mailto:rscano@iwa-italy.org] 
Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2004 9:32 am
To: Chris Ridpath; John M Slatin; Joe Clark; WAI-GL
Subject: Re: Top-Posting And Guideline 3.1



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Chris Ridpath" <chris.ridpath@utoronto.ca>
To: "John M Slatin" <john_slatin@austin.utexas.edu>; "Joe Clark"
<joeclark@joeclark.org>; "WAI-GL" <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2004 4:09 PM
Subject: Re: Top-Posting And Guideline 3.1



> So let's all just write as clearly as we can and get back to worrying 
> about *Web* content instead of email.
>
I believe that email is web content. Our messages are archived and
served up as HTML pages so how can they be otherwise?

The guidelines speak of "all web content" and I don't recall seeing a
list of exclusions.

Roberto Scano:
Hi Chris, u have take the same words that I wanna use :)
We must remember the definition fo web content, that is not only web
pages.

Roberto Scano (IWA/HWG)
--
OK, but then this brings us back to a point Andy Snow-Weaver raised
about email lists and about the WAI archiving software in particular:
first, I don't generally compose email as Web content, though I have no
objection to doing so; but second, if I *do* compose messages as Web
content, the archiving software strips out any HTML that may appear in
messags as composed. If I work from the list archive rather than from my
mail client's inbox, the Respond function does not include the original
message in my reply; this eliminates top-posting, of course, but it also
makes it impossible to respond directly to specific content within the
original message, putting the burden of remembering and summarizing that
message on the person responding-- which in turn may create
accessibility barriers to people with memory deficits.

But if I decide to use my mail client instead, then in some
configurations that client pushes me toward top-posting: if, for
example, I tell Outlook to include my signature  in replies and forwards
(as I had been doing until recently), it sets up the reply as a top-post
and doesn't give me any options that I'm aware of to place the signature
differently.

So now we're into ATAG...

John

Received on Tuesday, 29 June 2004 11:46:25 UTC