Bottom posting v top posting

[Brian Salter-Duke]

On Sun, May 13, 2018 at 03:03:55PM +1000, Erik Christiansen wrote:
> On 13.05.18 09:52, Brian Salter-Duke wrote:
> > My partner reads gmail on her phone or tablet. She reads my messages but does
> > not realise that if she scrolls down she can see her message that I replying
> > to. If I had bottom posting, she would never have read my message, thinking
> > that some how she had got her email back again. The use of phones for email
> > alters the game. It is time we gave up bottom posting!
> 
> The world has an infinite supply of fools who stumble through it,
> unaware that it is the adaptor who survives. NO, it is not the list
> community which needs to adapt to one intruder, but the converse.
> 
> Bottom post, and we will read. Only then can you hope for a reply.
> Understand that we have t-prot for TOFU protection, and do not need to
> scroll down as long quotes are compressed. Trim your quotes, not out of
> consideration for the reader if you lack that, but in order for your
> reply to be seen and read.
> 
> Try to learn. It is a prerequisite to becoming adaptable. The first
> survival tactic is when in Rome, do as they do. We have no problem with
> you sending inverted messages in other domains. Go your hardest, but to
> attempt to impose that foolishness on our community is infantile and a
> symptom of slow learning.
> 
> Thinking can be a useful path to learning. Is it possible for you to
> imagine that if you could learn to trim your quotes to the essential
> minimum of a line or two, then bottom posting works well on most
> screens, and even on phones if you prefix the whole message with:
> "For clarity I'm answering in context, see below:"
> 
> Your partner's ignorance and your failure to compensate do not compel an
> entire community to pander to your slow learning. Please man up and adapt. 
> 
> Erik

Eric, I tried to email you direct, but you do not allow that, so I will have to
send to the list my anger at your post. Who the hell do you think you are to
lecture me in that way?  I have been using mutt for pretty well as long as you
have no doubt. I am perfectly happy to bottom post. I have always bottom posted
on the mutt lists. I understand why the mutt community prefers it. I prefer it.
The problem is that nobody outside the mutt community who email me use it.
Also, it would not go down well if I tried to educate my research colleagues 
at universities all over the world to bottom post.

We have had 20 years or so to educate people to bottom post. We have almost
entirely failed.

It turns out that my random sig that I use for this list is highly appropriate.
I assure you that it really is random.

Brian.

-- 
"Please stop telling us what you feel. Please stop telling us what your
intuition is. Your intuitive feelings are of no interest whatsoever, 
and nor are mine. I don't give a bugger what you feel, or what I feel. 
I want to know what the evidence shows."             -- Richard Dawkins
Brian Salter-Duke (Brian Duke) Email: brian(DOTjames(DOTduke(AT)gmail(DOT)com