Re: [Pan-users] top posting

[Charles Kerr]

On Tue, Oct 21, 2003 at 02:29:33PM -0400, brett holcomb wrote:
> And top posting makes things much more readable so we 
> don't have to wade through reams of text (even with good 
> snipping).  When you read hundreds of posts that's a 
> consideration - in fact some bottom/inline posts have 
> become so unreadable I don't even bother to look at the 
> thread anymore.  It's more efficent to look at the reply 
> on top and then if I want to review more I'll read the 
> rest of the text.  All I hear from those who want to force 
> bottom posting is that it's not "the right way to do it" 
> and "it's always been done that way". I know various 
> references are quoted sometimes but they aren't any more 
> valid or invalid than top posters.
> 
> The bottom line is that either works and I should have the 
> choice to turn of a warning I consider misguided. In 
> something like this shouldn't be forced to adhere to 
> someones definition of right.  I understand what I'm doing 
> and don't want to have to keep telling any newsreader to 
> shutup and send the post.
> 
> On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 19:17:22 +0100
>  Brian Morrison <address@hidden> wrote:
> >On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 10:15:07 -0700 in
> >address@hidden Anthony
> ><address@hidden> wrote:
> >
> >>However, when one is developing an argument or train of 
> >>thought which
> >>isn't directly a reply to something previously written, 
> >>and one wants
> >>to keep the previously written  material for context, 
> >>top posting is
> >>appropriate. References in papers are footnotes, not 
> >>headnotes, and
> >>similarly, top-posting draws the attention to the new 
> >>content, while
> >>leaving the old content available for reference or 
> >>context.
> >
> >While this type of use is acceptable it is a small 
> >percentage of the
> >total Usenet experience. Hence the warning is justified 
> >because it means
> >that people are forced to be sure that's what they mean 
> >to do.

This article is already a good example of why top-posting doesn't
work well, as its flow goes from the middle (Anthony's message),
then the lower middle (Brian's), then jumps to the top (Brett's),
then to the bottom (mine).

Either top-posting or bottom-posting works, but only if it's the
same convention that everyone else is posting.  Since the vast
majority of posters use bottom-posting, that's what Pan enforces.

Anyway, I'm not going to get into an argument about the virtues
of top- or bottom- posting.  That's been discussed many, many times
before and the conclusions are available to anyone via Google.
If you insist on writing annoying messages without having Pan annoy
you back, the code to comment out is in check_top_posting() in
pan/base/message-check.c.  I'm happy that you're using Pan, but
I'm not going to put in a preferences button to disable these warnings.

-- 
cheers,
Charles