Why top-posting is bad

[Brad Knowles]

At 10:42 AM +0530 2004-08-30, Rahul Siddharthan wrote:

>  If you want to go about correcting the world's email habits, you
>  should (a) make sure that the problem you're seeing is clearly
>  referenced in the web page you link to, (b) if that's not the case,
>  say what the problem is.

	Again, we get back to the problem of it being impossible to 
enumerate all the potential permutations and combinations of various 
different things that people might do wrong in formatting a message.

	If you disagree, then I would invite you to go individually count 
all the atoms in the universe.  When you're done, then count all the 
atoms that you missed.


	It is possible to describe a number of common message formatting 
problems on a web page, and when you discover any kind of formatting 
problem in a message that you are replying to, you can refer people 
to that page.

	If you think you can do better, I would encourage you to do so -- 
lead by example.  Once you have a known working implementation that 
is superior, show us what you did and how, and we can integrate that 
with our own methods.  You might even wind up teaching Greg a thing 
or three.

	Until/unless you can do that, I don't think you're likely to gain 
much traction here.

-- 
Brad Knowles, <brad at stop.mail-abuse.org>

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

     -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
     Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755

   SAGE member since 1995.  See <http://www.sage.org/> for more info.