Re: [WAI-IG] list policies (top posting for vision impairments)

David Woolley wrote:
> I think the reasons are:
>
> - laziness;
> - GUI email clients that don't treat email as line oriented (this also
>   causes other problems on standards compliant email programs) and
>   therefore don't provide natural breaks to insert responses;
> - possibly an ability of the general public to adapt to new technology
>   fully (leaving in the old text is a combination of a slight adaptation
>   and laziness).

There's also complete ignorance, as I was never even aware that top posting
was an issue until reading this topic. Personally, I prefer top posting when
reading emails, regardless of whether it's a personal email to me, or in a
list. I often miss parts of the reply in heavily quoted emails, as I tend to
speed-read when I'm in a rush, and I'm skipping all the bits I've previously
read, and in some cases wrote. Having said that, I just didn't realise that
top posting could cause such an issue until reading the interesting replies
in this post. The arguments put forward by Derek have convinced me that
(whatever the technical term for non-top posting) is the safest method of
responding to an email without offending anyone.

When I read Joe Clark's signature about not being surprised if you get
criticised for top posting, I thought it was a warning not to write better
quality posts than him (smile).

Best regards.

Gez
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Received on Sunday, 29 February 2004 06:14:49 UTC