Top Posting... Can we have an LO Mailing List Guidelines Page?

users
#21

I'm with you Don, - see below -

Reply below:

For those that continue to insist on top posting on the LO lists: please
consider bottom posting with interspersed replies.

I realiz(s)e that the existing:
http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/
doesn't specifically clarify anything with regards to top/bottom
posting. However at the bottom of each mail on this list is a link to:
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
That page doesn't help much either, but it /does/ include a link to:
http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html
which includes this bit:
http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote2.html#ss2.3

<quote>
2.3 Why should I place my response below the quoted text?

Usually, the reading-flow is from left to right and from top to bottom,
and people expect a chronological sequence similar to this. Especially
people who are reading a lot of articles (and who therefore would
qualify as the ideal person to answer your question) appreciate it if
they can read at first the text to which you are referring. The quoted
text is some kind of help to remember the topic, which of course will
not work, if you place the quoted text below your response.

Furthermore, that's the standard. This may sound as a weak argument, but
since people are not used to reading the other way around, they have no
idea what you are referring to and have to go back and forth between the
referenced articles, have to jump between different articles and so on.
In short - reading the article becomes more and more difficult - for
people who read many articles it is reason enough to skip the entire
article, if the context is not obvious.

And besides: doesn't it look stupid to first get the answer and then see
the question? (Aside from Jeopardy, of course.)

Furthermore, you (yes: You) save a lot of time using this way of
quoting: You do not need to repeat what the person you refer to wrote,
in order to show the context. You just place your comment after the text
you wish to comment upon, and everybody immediately knows what you refer
to. Also, you realize which text you are *not* responding to and can
delete these parts.

So: using this technique you save time, your readers don't have to waste
time, you save bandwidth and disk-space. Isn't it great what you can
achieve by such simple means?
</quote>

and that seems to imply that such posting styles on this list are the
desired guideline.

Samples of similar on other lists:

http://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/etiquette.html
<quote>
Top-posting vs bottom-posting.

     Some people like to put reply after the quoted text, some like it
the other way around, and still some prefer interspersed style. Debates
about which posting style is better have led to many flame wars in the
forums. To keep forum discussion friendly, please do interspersion with
trimming (see above for trimming rules). For a simple reply, this is
equivalent bottom-posting. So, remove extraneous material, and place
your comments in logical order, after the text you are commenting upon.
The only exceptions are the accessibility forums, which are top-posting.
</quote>

http://www.ubuntu.com/support/community/mailinglists
<quote>
Proper quoting:

Proper quoting is very important on mailing lists, to ensure that it is
easy to follow the conversation. There are four fundamental rules:

....

     Write your email underneath the email which you are replying to.
...
</quote>

and even:
http://www.openoffice.org/ml_guidelines.html
<quote>
Replying
When replying to other people it is customary to intersperse your
response with their questions, both so you can answer the actual
question that was asked, and so everyone else has some idea what you are
talking about. It is also customary to limit your quoting to the minimum
possible to get your point across. Take the time to be considerate,
remember those subscribers who have slow, expensive connections.
</quote>

Note: that last is liable to go away given the recent
transition/announcements by Apache regarding mail lists... but it's
worth mentioning anyway.

Eventually I hope that LO will actually include a link to general
posting guidelines on the
<http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/> page with complete
posting guidelines. Even if the final consensus is to only top post...
at least will help with consistancy on this (users), and the other LO lists.

Added Note: I've set the 'Followup-to' on this message to the discuss
list as I think that is more the appropriate location for continued
discussion of the issue. But I posted here initially on the users list
as this is the list that really needs the guidelines (IMO) the most.

Hi All,

I will respect your wishes about posting at the bottom. I live in the US. I do a lot of work e-mails in my job, and receive a lot of work e-mails. I never receive any e-mails where people reply to me at the bottom. The reply is always at the top. I never understood why Thunderbird had the default to reply at the bottom when Thunderbird came out. It was backwards!!!!!! So I have always changed the default on every system I've installed it on. Maybe there are different customs in different countries.

Don

It is basically an email vs newsgroups issue. Professional emails are almost always top posted,
which is easier to read in the preview window of email readers.
Newsgroups, which use very deep threaded conversations, traditionally bottom-post to display
more context of the conversation.
This list is a sort of hybrid, which is why people use both systems.
I can see some of the advantages of bottom-posting, but it does mean a lot more scrolling
to get to the meat of the message.

cheers,

Chris

#22

This list seems to suffer from long sections of quoted text with
sometimes just a single line of new stuff right at the bottom (eg. 'I
agree'). Provided people cut out all but what is relevant to their
reply I personally don't mind whether it is top, bottom or
interspersed. But as one with a casual interest in most of the posts,
the ability to quickly see the gist without having to scroll down
several page worths is vital. I am told by the way that top posting is
far preferable to disabled people using reading aids, as they hardly
want all the old stuff spoken by their machine before they get to the
new stuff.

Dave

http://www.davesergeant.com

#23

Thank you!!!!!!

#24

Hi :slight_smile:
Often you already know roughly what is going on and only need to read the latest
post. Sometimes people might need quick easy access to previous comments and a
quick scroll downwards can help them gain context if they can't quite remember
some detail.

This list should allow people to use what they are familiar with rather than try
to alienate new users surely? It's a little unwelcoming to say that all new
users are lazy slobs and even worse to hide answers away where they wont find
them imo.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#25

I get so tired of this totally lame and purposefully ignorant excuse.

You only have to scroll if the person who is replying *blindly* quotes the *entire* *message*, rather than - as *all* top/inline posting advocates suggest - trimming the quoted text to only what is relevant to provide context to your reply.

You and Tom Davies simply ignore that - so what does that make you? Disingenuous (aka liar)? A moron (someone who cannot wrap their brain around a simple truth) Both?

#26

Hi :slight_smile:
Really?  Personal insults?  Here??

Over the past few months there has been a steadily increasing amount of top-posting.  It is not just one or 2 people.  Outside of LibreOffice and OpenSource everyone else uses top-post almost exclusively.  Smart phones make it difficult to post any other way.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#27

You only have to scroll if the person who is replying *blindly* quotes the *entire* *message*, rather than - as *all* top/inline posting advocates suggest - trimming the quoted text to only what is relevant to provide context to your reply.

You and Tom Davies simply ignore that - so what does that make you? Disingenuous (aka liar)? A moron (someone who cannot wrap their brain around a simple truth) Both?

As I replied to another message - we live in the real world - not some idealised
world where everyone is rational. People are lazy - get used to it.
And there is no need to insult everyone.

In most cases top-posting is preferable. However, in this 'list' environment, bottom-posting
and selective quoting works better for retaining context. However, we cannot enforce this
without alienating the very people this list is aimed at (ie everyone), so we will
just have to live with a few inconsistencies and inconveniences.

cheers,

Chris

#28

It seems to me, an inherent problem with this kind of "free for all" in posting styles is you never know where to look for replies. :slight_smile:

#29

What the heck was that???

(top-posted because there is no way to make sense of the quoted text)

I... guess it was some serious Thunderbird misconfiguration? Or maybe
it's written in Quenya...

(replied exactly below the question it's supposed to address, just like
interleaved style should be used)

#30

1°) the single "I agree" line is useless
2°) When bottom posting one should go to the end of the road and trim

#31

What???

https://lkml.org/lkml/2011/8/30/120
Linux kernel Mailing list would be a "non professional"?
Given all the big companies employees contributing?

#32

Again, what the problem with trimming the message, just as I did?
Please tell.

#33

I guess the machine can recognize well-formed e-mail messages (that is,
not the kind that gets sent by clients which default to top-posting),
and then just ignore the quoted content.

#34

I dont agree with you.

#35

Hi, Tom,

Top posting is fine. Almost everyone top-posts except some people in a few
OpenSource mailing lists. If you need to communicate with anyone that works in
an office then you probably have to top-post otherwise they will probably just
ignore your email and delete it without reading it..

Top posting essentially ends up with a layout/format that is similar to forums, but in reverse. All new answers are at the top of the discussion, and in forums the new answers are at the bottom.

And if the discussion is long, and the poster doesn't trim or the number of pertinent replies gets large, finding the section of the message that is being replied to requires a lot of scrolling. And can be a huge time waster, as it is in long forum threads. I know this about forum threads, I'm involved with one now that is 6 web pages in length currently.

A few old-timers here might have to accept that we are here to help open things
up for people not to bully, restrict and make unnecessary demands.

Asking people to follow the rules is not bullying, restricting, or making unnecessary demands. It simply makes it easier for everyone to know where the new replies will be found.

I think the core problems of this dilemma of where to post is lack of education, and lack of enforcement of the rules.

#36

I live in the US. I do a lot of work e-mails in my job, and receive a
lot of work e-mails. I never receive any e-mails where people reply to
me at the bottom.

Because people you talk with read bottum-up.
And it's not a country custom, just a matter of education and logic.

-- RMA.

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Tom, even if you top post, please trim your messages. I doubt the
mailing list signature with the unsubscribe instructions classifies as
"context".

(signature quoted, as it should be when the current message happens to
discuss a previous signature)

Often you already know roughly what is going on and only need to read the latest
post.

I don't think that's a good point, it works both ways, either you "just
scroll" down to read the latest post, or you "just scroll" down to read
the context.

Sometimes people might need quick easy access to previous comments and a
quick scroll downwards can help them gain context if they can't quite remember
some detail.

But what happens if people top-post ten consecutive messages, and then
someone tries to get some context?

We hope all these posters have trimmed their citations and that they
used clients that don't mess the citations, but it's still somehow
painful, because it's not a matter of reading bottom-up, it's a matter
of reading top-down several sentences in bottom-up order.

A bottle of water and either acetylsalicylic acid or paracetamol are
advised.

This list should allow people to use what they are familiar with rather than try
to alienate new users surely?

The problem is that in this case personal choices affects the way other
people use the list.

I guess we want to keep disruption at a minimum, so please, no matter
what kind of posting you want to use, trim citations and adjust all
citations so that they follow your style.

I mean, if you're top-posting, make sure what you're quoting is ordered
that way. IMHO it's less confusing.

#37

I live in the US. I do a lot of work e-mails in my job, and receive a
lot of work e-mails. I never receive any e-mails where people reply
to me at the bottom. The reply is always at the top.

That is *only* because Microsoft decided to make blindly top-posting
(and quoting the *entire* previous *email*, rather than encouraging
users to actually *think* about what they are replying to and respond
intelligently).

It all started spreading even faster when the bussiness world started
using e-mail tools that weren't designed for e-mail or that were made
after September 1993.

Then some people started adopting that behavior, because they probably
thought "if they're using it this way, that's how I should use it".

And nowadays it's not just help centers and bussinesses, it's other
people too.

If you do office work (like Tom), or interact with bussiness people a
lot, then you'll probably see lots of people top-posting.

I never understood why Thunderbird had the default to reply at the
bottom when Thunderbird came out.

Now you know.

Because Thunderbird has cultural inheritance that dates from August 1993
or earlier.

It was backwards!!!!!!

No, it is correct - it is only 'backwards' for those weaned on
Outlook.

Hmm, I've been reading books by increasing order of page number. I guess
I've been doing it backwards all my life.

#38

Often you already know roughly what is going on and only need to read the latest
post.

If you're following only one thread/subthread in the messages, and have been able to keep up. :smiley: But I follow a lot of things, in a lot of places, and I often have to go back to older messages, even if trimming is being used, to refresh my memory. (What's left of the memory! LOL)

Sometimes people might need quick easy access to previous comments and a
quick scroll downwards can help them gain context if they can't quite remember
some detail.

Quick scrolling??? What's that??? LOL

Seriously, though, if interspersion is used, you don't have to scroll anywhere.

This list should allow people to use what they are familiar with rather than try
to alienate new users surely?

Absolutely not! If a person is alienated by being asked to follow the rules, then that person doesn't belong, or "play well with the other kids". :slight_smile: Using that philosophy, if driving my car backwards down the street is what I'm familiar with, should I be able to do that when I come visit you? Should I be allowed to drive backwards on the other side of the road?

A newsgroup is a community, and for any community to function efficiently, rules need to be established, followed, and enforced.

It's a little unwelcoming to say that all new
users are lazy slobs and even worse to hide answers away where they wont find
them imo.

Following the rules does not hide the answers. In fact, it's just the opposite, IMO. If you follow, and enforce, the rules, and you know the rules, you know where to find the answers.

All civilizations, cultures, communities that are/were successful had rules that were followed. Anarchy, everyone doing what they wanted, has never been successful AFAIK.

LO's website, though, is another story! :smiley:

#39

Mozilla's netiquette page specifies interspersion.

Anyone using a smartphone for something like this isn't interested in quality and depth in a conversation anyway. :slight_smile:

#40

I disagree, you can enforce it. You just have to have the courage to do so.