[Foundation-l] Cutting quotes and other such stuff

[Jens Ropers]

On 14 Dec 2004, at 15:46, Andre Engels wrote:

> On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 01:05:45 +0100, TOR <tor at oak.rpg.pl> wrote:
>
>> These are general netiquette rules and are to facilitate reading. You
>> read form top to bottom, right? That's why it's only logical to have 
>> the
>> quote first and the reply second. They also keep the size of the posts
>> down. Essencially, if you quote the whole post in your reply, you're
>> making all the readers download it twice (first the original and then
>> it's copy in your reply).
>
> I prefer to have the new text *above* the old one, especially if there
> is lots of text quoted. In that case I can read the new text and
> ignore the old. Putting it below means I have to go down through the
> text to get to the new stuff. I too read from the top to the bottom,
> and therefore I would like to have the most important material, being
> that material that I have not read yet, at the beginning.

<ha-ha-only-serious>
	Please don't feed the trolls.
</ha-ha-only-serious>

I mean, for crying out loud, the guy said it was his first post here -- 
yet he tried to tell us/me what rules we/I should play by here. (!)

If he had searched the our lists' archives he would have found that 
this too is an issue some of us hold opposing views about -- from the 
visceral (or jocular?) "ARRGGHH TOP-POST KILL KILL" to a clear 
preference for that order. People also differ on how much previous 
material should be quoted: It largely depends on whether the sender 
assumes people to have (ie. have kept) the relevant previous emails. 
Since I don't claim to be clairvoyant about how *everybody else* has 
got their email client configured, I personally tend to include more, 
preferably just enough so my reply can be fully understood in context. 
I also ''tend'' to top-post (sometimes) because bottom posting requires 
manual cutting and pasting with Mac OS X Mail. Some people here like 
that, some don't. What-Ever. If there is a clear democratic preference 
then I will respect that. Failing that, this issue is nothing to go 
finger-wagging and lecturing people about.
Can't remember who said it, but someone observed that 
top-posting-aversion was a shibboleth, nothing more. Fair enough. But I 
don't have to be a member of this or that canonical tribe and TEH REAL 
OLD SKOOL L33t HAXORS don't pwnerz this list.

-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]]
     www.ropersonline.com

PS: Oh, and just in case there's anyone out there feeling that what I 
just said amounted to [[Eternal September]]: Which is worse -- a 
"mostly harmless" choice of preference or making an arse of yerself by 
loud huffing and puffing and preaching to pwn TEH TURTH?