RE: [WAI-IG] Top posting. An attempted summary

I've changed the subject, since it appears that top posting impacts
sighted users as well.

My view of a summary.

1. top posting can greatly increase volume, and some users still pay for
bandwidth.

2. Replying in context. If an email has multiple topics which you want to
answer
individually, then top posting may make it harder. This is obviously far
more of
a problem in long emails than in brief ones.

3. Inferred semantics. Determining who said what. Interleaved comments to me
give some intimation
that the text with 5 right angle brackets is getting pretty old by now, the
text
with no indentation is recent. Handled variably by various email clients.
I've seen
one who has the initials of the poster instead of the angle brackets.

4. Line wrap. Unsure if this is just visual or not, but I wholly agree its a
pain to
untangle the line wrap when replies are preceeded by the angle brackets.
Does it mess
up interpretation for screen reader users too?

5. Navigation. If navigation is not easy for whatever reason, top posting in
other 
than simple messages isn't easy.

6. Tool restrictions. If your email tool is line based, top posting is easy
for you,
interleaving isn't. 

7. It could be that long complex emails need treating differently than brief
answers,
but surely there must be some benefit in a consistant approach.

8. Be considerate of time lag. If your reader isn't going to read your post
near the 
time of others, then top posting is harder to comprehend without the context
of 
interleaved posts.

9. I liked Charles keep the language clear. Possibly as important as most of
the other 
points.

What did I miss?

regards DaveP

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Received on Monday, 1 March 2004 03:48:39 UTC