On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 12:41 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Hello --
Some of the people posting to this mailing list don't seem to understand
how to write a decent, readable reply to a mailing list thread.
Yes, but the opinion on what makes a readable reply may differ from person to person.
This makes for far more noise than signal,
True
as people wade through six copies of the
foundation-l footer
Footers should of course be kept brief and to the point, else they become irritating.. Our current footer can probably be reduced to 1 or 2 lines.
or eight old and irrelevant replies trying to find the
content of the reply to the previous message.
Good practice imho is to leave only the previous text, but delete all text
before the previous message. This is easiest when people use top-line posting. But I must confess that I have not always done that in the past.
The Toolserver wiki has a fantastic page that explains how to reply to a
mailing list thread the Right Way.[1] If you suspect you've been Doing It
Wrong, please have a read.
See my reply further down.
Thanks!
MZMcBride
Thank you for providing the link. I think this policy must be discussed, as many people will prefer top-line posting, as shown by its popularity on this mailing list.. Inline posting, as demonstrated by this reply, may well obscure the orginal message.