Just for the record: my inclusion of top-posters in the anathema list was
ironic. The suggestion that RickK or anyone else should pay $30/year simply
in order to avoid top-posting strikes me as absurd. Top-posting is like
infinitive-splitting: it's an imaginary, artificial rule made up recently for
the sole purpose of creating an artificial distinction between an out-group
and an in-group. It was originally loose recommendation _in the service of
making postings compact and comprehensible._ It wasn't until 1999 or
thereabouts that people regularly began getting flamed for it. Try a Google
"Advanced Groups" search on "top-posting" as exact phrase and limit
the date
range from 1981 to 1997 and you'll see what I mean.
I generally don't top-post, just as I generally don't split
infinitives, for the same reason: because I don't like being yelled at by
people.
As for Yahoo mail... when we got our high-speed connection, the first thing I
did was, of course, was set up my email client to connect to (then)
bellatlantic.net's pop server. My wife was new to the Internet, wanted to do
everything herself. Her PC was preconfigured with the browser pointed at a
Gateway-flavored Yahoo, and she discovered and signed up for Yahoo browser-
based mail. I kept offering to get her up with "real" email, but she kept
saying no thanks. It pained me to see her clicking her way through the clumsy
web-based UI. But ultimately the joke was on me. Using Yahoo web mail, she
has enjoyed a high level of virus protection and spam filtering; has been
able to keep the same email address; has had reliable email while I've
experienced three or four multi-day outages on the part of Verizon's servers;
and has been able to check her email conveniently when away from home.