Re: Bottom versus Top posting

On 16 Nov 2013 Jenny Cornwell  wrote:

> I have had a complaint from many people that they find my emails
> confusing. I find that I don't get replies to requests/questions which
> are at the end of their emails even when I have 'snipped' them.

> This is because !Messenger Pro always bottom posts.

Eh? You can type your reply wherever you want it. MPro will warn you 
for breaching netiquette if you type the whole of your reply at the 
top, but you can disable the warning if you like (Choices... > 
Advanced options > Validation).

> Remember !Messenger Pro is designed to follow the Netiquette protocol
> which was normal in the early days of the internet

> I have re-searched for Email Netiquette on Top and Bottom posting and
> found this useful guidance given to students on a University site:-

[snip]

>      On the other hand, top posting is the default for several
>      popular email clients, and as such the preference for many,
>      as top posting makes it 'easier' for people to find the
>      latest response to a message. Otherwise readers may need to
>      scroll for pages before they get to the last message. This
>      is perhaps the biggest reason why some people are actually
>      against bottom posting.

That's baloney. The problem is that people who top post almost always 
leave the whole of the past dialogue snowballing underneath their 
replies. The quoted messages are in reverse chronological order so if 
you do want to refer to them you have to read a bit going down then 
scroll up to the start of the next reply and so on.

I keep copies of messages sent and received so I can always refer to 
them if necessary. I only need to be reminded of the bit you are 
commenting on. Top posting might help those who read and delete.

>      It is probably best to find out which style the majority of
>      people in your department use and stick to that. Otherwise
>      it can become quite confusing to have some top posting and
>      others bottom posting in an email conversation!

I don't see why you should get confused. It's obvious if someone has 
top-posted a reply, and if you'd previously interspersed your comments 
then presumably you would have deleted all the redundant text.

> Do others think it that we need to be able to choose whether to top or
> bottom post according to whom or where we are sending an email and
> that should ask for this option to be added?

Within a particular organisation you can decide what conventions you 
wish to use. When posting to a public mailing list of newsgroup then 
follow traditional netiquette.

> Is it time for us to think again and ask Andrew to give us this
> option, which I understand exists in some other product?

No cange to MPro is necessary.

-- 
Richard Porter                        http://www.minijem.plus.com/
                                      mailto:ricp@...
I don't want a "user experience" - I just want stuff that works.

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