On Tue, 2006-07-18 at 15:09 -0700, Peter Gordon wrote: > Alexander Dalloz wrote: > > As I read your smiley as a request for comment: there was a reason why I > > quoted the word rules when pointing to the wiki page. And the page > > content itself reads as "guidelines", which from my reading is not that > > strong as "rules" would be. Can a native English speaker agree to this? :) > > I agree. The term "rules" generally has a connotation of being very strict, > whereas "guidelines" are usually recommendations that *should* be followed, > but *may* be changed or adapted to a given situation. This is why the wiki page in question was renamed last November from MailingListRules to MailinglistGuidelines. On Tue, 2006-07-18 at 14:45 -0700, jdow wrote: > Alex, rules are for pedantics, tyrants, Democrats, and religious > fanatics. Humans should be adaptable. But I do agree that bottom > posting is somewhat easier to read and should be RECOMMENDED but > not insisted upon. It's useful to bear in mind though that pedants like me tend to ignore people that repeatedly top-post despite being asked not to. So the top-posters are potentially missing out on sources of solutions to their problems. On Wed, 2006-07-19 at 14:38 +1000, Steffen Kluge wrote: > On Tue, 2006-07-18 at 17:19 -0400, Todd Zullinger wrote: > > No one will die over top posting (well, not many). > > I find trimming the quotation down to the bit you're actually replying > to far more important than where to put it. If you do that in-line > posting almost comes naturally. > > A bottom-posted message that quotes two pages of stuff everybody has > already read, then adds a line or two at the end can be just as annoying > as turning the discussion flow upside down. > > Hence: trim your quotations! I couldn't agree more. I've seen people on this very list give netiquette lectures to people regarding top-posting, and in the very email containing the lecture, they don't trim out the irrelevant text such as everything below the last line of their reply. Rather hypocritical behaviour but the irony of it raises a smile :-) Paul.
