[X-Newbies] Top posing in mail?

[Steven Rogers]

On May 19, 2005, at 8:36 PM, Brian Durant wrote:

> In my humble opinion, if top posting is not following net etiquette,
> net etiquette should be changed. Why? Because many spell checking
> programs slavishly check spelling from the top of any document,
> including e-mails.

that's what's wrong with the current process - its done in the way  
that serves the software, not the people who are using it. And not  
just software in general (my program, for example, checks from the  
cursor forward) but the lowest common denominator. This is a good  
example of why the RFCs were written to being with - when people  
start using the net, they just don't have the experience to  
distinguish a sound basis for such choices vs. a silly basis. In some  
environments nowadays, they'll never learn from experience.

> I don't want to have to correct other people's
> inarticulate gibberish before I can make sure that I am putting my
> point across in an intelligible manner.

Gee, let's re-write all the RFCs so that its convenient for you to  
spell check in your email program.  Of course, if you had any  
experience at all, you'd know that this is a dead-end. Any rationale  
that starts with "my software does . . ." is a dead end because there  
will always be someone else with different software. That's why, back  
in the "old days" people who posted this kind of stuff were told to  
be quiet and go read the RFCs. But don't let decades of experience  
get in your way.

> That is also a likely reasonwhy this is standard in the business  
> world.

Its the standard in the business world because its the default  
Outlook behavior.

> Don't get me started on
> those people that insist on inserting their comments in between
> snippets of replied to text :-)

Lord no - wouldn't want the message to be intelligible . . .

SR