Re: [Gusdev-gusdev] mailing list protocol?

[Jonathan C. <cra...@pc...>]

Steve-

Steve Fischer wrote:
> I have another suggestion to add:
> 
> that we always add our reponse to the top of the message, and never cut 
> out parts of it.  ie, that going to any individual mail in the thread 
> contains the entire thread up till that point.  otherwise, it is a pain 
> to go searching for the parts of the thread that have been cut out.

I'm not sure I agree with this; top-posting is generally considered a bad
thing because it's far easier to understand someone's response (particularly
when they are responding to several distinct points) when the different parts
of the response are interjected at the correct points in the quoted text
(with a blank line before and after to make it easy to find the new material.)

Similarly, I think that the generally-accepted practice is to allow
responders to excise parts of the quoted message as they see fit (e.g.,
if they only want to comment on a small part of it.)  I don't think the
tracking problem is that bad, because as long as we follow the previously-
described protocol for replies, you should be able to track the e-mail
thread using a threaded e-mail reader (I don't use this feature too much,
but I know that Mozilla supports it.)

I'm pretty sure that the above reflects the accepted wisdom for Usenet
posting etiquette, and I believe that it probably also applies to e-mails
on the gusdev list, which is effectively a newsgroup of sorts.  Search
google for "top-posting" and you'll see a bunch of articles on the subject.

Jonathan