Reply Top Posting

[M.RossARR]

While reply top posting seems wrong, it is a common habit for most
writers. I am periodically guilty! It seems natural, the software
works that way. Yet Matt makes a good argument concerning the Q&A
becoming A&Q. And with multiple replies a conversation can become a
mess! Who said what first?

Pine & Alpine offers the signature to be at the top or bottom via:
Setup-Config
[ -Reply Preferences- ]
[X] signature-at-bottom

I will assume most users set it for bottom! Makes sense!

Yet when reply is triggered, the cursor is always found at the top
waiting to type, so off goes the writer top posting! It's natural!

May I suggest to whoever, for a future update (I understand Pine is
dead so Alpine), if technically possible - being software it should
be, the cursor be programmed to start in position for reply just
above the signature block a line or two, which would normally be at
the bottom of the previous post. The only way to top post then would
be for the writer to manually move the cursor up there, which would
be an abnormal effort.

For other purposes, making interim comment between paragraphs,
editing, it really does not matter. The effort then is not top
posting anyway. All rules ignored!

That's my 2cents worth! Is it possible? Any comments?

--
The Best to You & Yours,
M. Ross All Rights Reserved
***@nixsyspaus.org
subj-code: alpinelist
mrossarr.nixsyspaus.org/

---end-of-message---

[Rick Lewis]

Pine and alpine are fine the way they are.
Too many people unnecessarily include the entire text of prior messages
instead of just quoting the relevant passages they're replying to or
writing a one- or two-line summary of prior comments.
Also as a blind person using speech software, when quotes are at the top,
I must wade through what I've already read and understood in order to get
to the meat of the new message.
The real problem is laziness on the part of email writer, not pine or
alpine, which do exactly what they should.
--
Rick

[M.RossARR]

Post by Rick Lewis
Pine and alpine are fine the way they are.
Too many people unnecessarily include the entire text of prior
messages instead of just quoting the relevant passages they're
replying to or writing a one- or two-line summary of prior
comments.

Most tech support People retain entire text as policy I notice. I
understand many are instructed to not delete any part of the old or
previous message. For followup & review.

Otherwise, carrying to much of old quotes is a problem for all of
us. How much to keep sometimes is decided too quickly when replying
& maybe we leave too much or cut too much. Part of life.

Post by Rick Lewis
Also as a blind person using speech software, when quotes are at
the top, I must wade through what I've already read and understood
in order to get to the meat of the new message.

A special problem! If the amount of quoted material was solved,
would the bottom-quoting really hurt you? As a user edits out extra
text & quotes below, would that not help the blind even more?

It seems the editing out of old unnecessary text is the problem to
solve for all of us. And many People are bottom-posting now anyway.

Am I causing you a problem in this reply? I am curious!

If People are provided with the cursor just above the signature,
below the quoted message, at least top-posting is ended for the rest
of us. Now how could that be used to alert users to clear out old
text? Alert the user by number of quoted lines? Maybe a line count
display or highlighted somehow. Maybe this is getting too complex!

Post by Rick Lewis
The real problem is laziness on the part of email writer, not pine
or alpine, which do exactly what they should.

Lazy People we are stuck with. I am guilty often. Worse, we may be
under a time limit & must decide & act quickly.

It sounds like the blind suffer mostly from a problem due to large
quoted replies. When writers bottom-post now, manually moving the
cursor down, your comment about Pine & Alpine doing "what they
should" do become irrelevant it seems. I think the blind suffer
either way. No quick solution.

The bottom-post feature I suggest would best be a Setup-Config
option, on or off, like the bottom-signature option. Don't link them
automatically. Let the user decide. A role could be used to reply to
certain People with or without bottom-posting!

For you Rick, I would make a note for the future, now knowing you
are blind, to try & reply in a way to not hurt you. Even top-post if
requested. On a forum like this though, many users are affected. Do
I reply for you, or for everybody?

--
The Best to You & Yours,
M. Ross All Rights Reserved
***@nixsyspaus.org
subj-code: alpinelist
mrossarr.nixsyspaus.org/

---end-of-message---

[Bret Busby]

Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2008 01:19:18 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
Subject: [Pine-info] Reply Top Posting

<snip>

May I suggest to whoever, for a future update (I understand Pine is
dead so Alpine), if technically possible - being software it should
be, the cursor be programmed to start in position for reply just
above the signature block a line or two, which would normally be at
the bottom of the previous post. The only way to top post then would
be for the writer to manually move the cursor up there, which would
be an abnormal effort.
For other purposes, making interim comment between paragraphs,
editing, it really does not matter. The effort then is not top
posting anyway. All rules ignored!
That's my 2cents worth! Is it possible? Any comments?

It seems logical and appropriate, to me, for the cursor to automatically
go to a position immediately above the signature block of a replier, so
that, where top posting is set and used the cursor defaults to the top
of the message, and, where bottom posting is set, the cursor defaults to
a position a line under the message to which the reply is being
composed, and a couple of lins above the signature block of the poster.

If a person uses inline posting, which many people use, if not always,
then, on occasion, as they bel;ieve the need arises, then the cursor
could default as for bootom posting, with the person moving the cursor
to where it is needed to insert the inline responses.

That is how I expect for it to work.

Unfortunately, however, the Wasington University, after decades of
service to computing, in its creation and maintenance of PINE, has
apparently abandoned computing and PINE, and has left PINE "dead in the
water", with no support any more.

This is unfortunate, as I believe that, even if Washington University
cannot afford to pay people to support PINE, it could incorporate the
ongoing support of PINE, into its undergraduate (or, postgraduate, if
necessary) programs, even if as something like a dedicated unit; "Online
Software Support", or something, which could give its graduates, an
extra advantage, in having on their resume, that they have been involved
in the online software support of a significant software package.

I think that that would be better than simply abandoning the software,
to die.

It reminds me of people who have domestic cats, that are so domesticated
that the cats cannot fend for themselves, and the cats do not even know
that they can eat animals like birds and mice, and, one day, getting
bored with the cats, simply take them for a drive in the country, and
then dump the cats and abandon the cats to die. And, I have seen the
results, both the cats that do manage to survive, and, the cats that are
forced to die miserable and cruel deaths.

--
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
Chapter 28 of Book 1 of
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
A Trilogy In Four Parts",
written by Douglas Adams,
published by Pan Books, 1992

....................................................

[Bret Busby]

Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2008 21:01:29 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: [Pine-info] Reply Top Posting
Hi Bret,
Hold the phone...I've been on this list for while now and using PINE
since 1993 and I haven't heard about UW dropping development. The Alpine
website states nothing like that. I heard about big budget cuts, too, but
not about that. Maybe you are confusing the transition to Alpine with the
death of PINE. (PINE isn't *really* dead; it lives on as Alpine. Do you
understand what I mean?) Somebody form UW please chime in if I'm wrong.
Long live Alpine,
Paul
P.S. By the way, It's not at all clear how the original post-er wants Alpine
to behave. What is "top post"? Does he/she take issue with writing in
reverse chronological order in reply messages, which is the convention? Or
is it the fact that there isn't any blank line padding before the signature
is included in the reply? The latter is configurable.

...
Unfortunately, however, the Wasington University, after decades of service
to computing, in its creation and maintenance of PINE, has apparently
abandoned computing and PINE, and has left PINE "dead in the water", with
no support any more.
...
I think that that would be better than simply abandoning the software, to
die.

See messages below.

Basically, it is a case of "It is PINE, Jim, but not as we know it" (?).

PINE and ALPINE, and, IMAP, are apparently no longer supported by the
University of Washington, other than in providing hosting of the PINE
and ALPINE mailing lists.

PINE was apparently abandoned by the University of Washington, about
three years go - they simply forgot to tell us. They figured that no-one
uses the good stuff anymore (wrong! - some of us still use the good
stuff).

As a user of PINE, I am subscribed to the PINE mailing list, but I am
not a user of ALPINE, and am not subscribed to that mailing list, so I
do not know what is said on the ALPINE mailing list, other than through
the cross-postings and mulit-way postings that drift onto this list.

--
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
Chapter 28 of Book 1 of
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
A Trilogy In Four Parts",
written by Douglas Adams,
published by Pan Books, 1992

....................................................

Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 11:28:45 +0800 (WST)
Subject: [Pine-info] Status of PINE
I am reposting the message below, as the important question of what is the current status of PINE, ALPINE, and IMAP, is unacknowledged and unanswered.
So also is the queston of whether the information indicating that these applications have been abandoned by Washington University, had been previously posted
to the list.
One of the aspects of the information that I have sought, to which no response has yet been posted, is whether this list is to continue, or whether the
Washington University is going to close it down.

Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:42:42 +0800 (WST)
Subject: Re: [Pine-info] RE: [Alpine-info] Cannot save messages into INBOX on
local spool?

Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 00:18:11 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)
Subject: [Pine-info] RE: [Alpine-info] Cannot save messages into INBOX on
local spool?

BTW I saw in another message something about Alpine going away... is that
true? I just discovered it about a month ago after running on PC-Pine for
years. I hate to think I got here at the end of the party. If it is going
away is it going to be replaced by something else?

The University of Washington spent a large sum of money every year to pay
the salaries of the people who brought your Pine, Alpine, and IMAP. They
are not going to do it any more;

I can understand & appreciate the financial load. But that is part
of the software development effort that all universities experience
in their functions. That is also part of an internal learning &
teaching process unique to universities. The U of Washington, &
development crew possess much to be proud of for Pine, Alpine, &
IMAP.

and in fact announced that since Microsoft,
Google, Yahoo, etc. provide email services for free, email is no longer an
essential internal service.

That seems irrelevant, as email service is one thing, software
development another. However, email service is very essential,
internal or external. I would never rely on one email service
provider, especially like the list above. Free service as such is
flaky, unreliable too often, & still needs a good email client
software as the webpage access interface is often poor at best.
Pine/Alpine/IMAP is necessary! No other software I find equates!

It is time for the "free software" community to take over the development,
maintenance, and distribution of this software. They have claimed for many
years that they want to do so, and that UW should give up its intellectual
property rights to its software to the "free software" community. UW has
now done so.

I hope that is all true. The U of Washington Pine, Alpine, & IMAP
development crew however created the finest email client software I
can find, & I hope that creation is not lost from here. Possibly
some U of Washington effort will continue to be involved, whether
formal or informal. It is always a major loss to loose the brains
behind brilliant creations.
--
The Best to You & Yours,
M. Ross All Rights Reserved
subj-code: alpinelist / pinelist
mrossarr.nixsyspaus.org/
--
Hanoi John is done, stick a fork in him, sidetrack
him, & get Ron Paul on the Nov 2008 ballot for GOP!
http://www.newswithviews.com/Devvy/kidd347.htm
http://www.newswithviews.com/Devvy/kidd379.htm
---end-of-message---
_______________________________________________
Pine-info mailing list
http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/pine-info

I have just seen the above message, and, this is the first time that I have seen any reference to, or any mention of, the University of Washington
abandoning all of PINE, ALPINE, and IMAP.
Has this previously been posted to this list, and, is it true?
Please advise.
--
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............

--
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............
"So once you do know what the question actually is,
you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
Chapter 28 of Book 1 of
A Trilogy In Four Parts",
written by Douglas Adams,
published by Pan Books, 1992
....................................................
_______________________________________________
Pine-info mailing list
http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/pine-info
[ Note: This message contains email list management information ]

....................................................

Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 11:07:00 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: [Pine-info] Status of PINE

I am reposting the message below, as the important question of what is the current status of PINE, ALPINE, and IMAP, is unacknowledged and unanswered.

Pine development ceased about three years ago. Pine's successor is Alpine. There has been some limited discussion of Alpine's future on the alpine-info
mailing list
http://www.washington.edu/alpine/alpine-info/subscribing.html
------ forwarded message ------
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 11:37:56
Subject: Re: [Alpine-info] alpine status
We will have at least one more release within the next couple weeks, probably called Alpine 2.0. It will include the source for Web Alpine 2.0, which was not
included as part of Alpine 1.10.
After that, we plan to continue serving as the primary host for Alpine source, but shift our effort from direct development into more of a consultation and
coordination role to help integrate contributions from the community.
University of Washington Alpine team
------ end of forwarded message ------
_______________________________________________
Pine-info mailing list
http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/pine-info
[ Note: This message contains email list management information ]

....................................................

[Benjamin R. Haskell]

Post by M.RossARR
Setup-Config
[ -Reply Preferences- ]
[X] signature-at-bottom
I will assume most users set it for bottom! Makes sense!
Yet when reply is triggered, the cursor is always found at the top
waiting to type, so off goes the writer top posting! It's natural!

If you include in your signature the special token _CURSORPOS_, you can
choose where the cursor is placed when replying.

Using what seems to be your signature as an example, you would change it
to everything between the lines of hyphens here:

---------------------------------------
_CURSORPOS_

--
The Best to You & Yours,
M. Ross All Rights Reserved
mrossarr-BFx/***@public.gmane.org
---------------------------------------

Combine it with the signature-at-bottom option, and it should behave as
you want.

Best,
Ben

[M.RossARR]

Post by M.RossARR
Setup-Config
...

If you include in your signature the special token _CURSORPOS_, you can choose
where the cursor is placed when replying.
Using what seems to be your signature as an example, you would change it to
---------------------------------------
_CURSORPOS_
--
The Best to You & Yours,
---------------------------------------
Combine it with the signature-at-bottom option, and it should behave as you
want.

Great idea, I missed that option! An update not needed!

But bad results on PC Pine 4.64, the cursor initializes all over the
place, somewhere near the signature block, inside of it often.
Random!

I am fighting to get PC Alpine 2.00 installed. I think a Windoooz
problem, so results there still unknown!

--
The Best to You & Yours,
M. Ross All Rights Reserved
***@nixsyspaus.org
subj-code: alpinelist
mrossarr.nixsyspaus.org/

---end-of-message---

[Lucio Chiappetti]

Post by M.RossARR
While reply top posting seems wrong, it is a common habit for most

Me too, I hate top posting (and full quoting too)
http://sax.iasf-milano.inaf.it/~lucio/Procmail/noquotenohtml.html

Post by M.RossARR
I will assume most users set it for bottom! Makes sense!

I have it set to signature at bottom. However I might appreciate that
somebody sets signature at top when FORWARDING correspondence :

[writes new message at top ABOVE signature]
signature at top
entire forwarded message

Post by M.RossARR
Yet when reply is triggered, the cursor is always found at the top
waiting to type, so off goes the writer top posting! It's natural!

Not for me ... I consider natural to do what follows WHEN REPLYING.
Composer starts with

Post by M.RossARR
message with indentation suffix
in its entirety
for many lines

signature at bottom

The what I do is

[possible brief introduction added on top]

Post by M.RossARR
message with indentation suffix

[ snipped and interspersed with my comments]

Post by M.RossARR
for not so many lines

[ snipped and interspersed with my comments]
signature at bottom

I.e. I start at top, go through the original message, snip the parts I'm
not going to reply, and insert my comments to those I leave in. THIS seems
natural to me.

Post by M.RossARR
May I suggest to whoever, for a future update (I understand Pine is
dead so Alpine), if technically possible - being software it should
be, the cursor be programmed to start in position for reply just
above the signature block a line or two, which would normally be at

If anybody is going to follow your suggestion, I'd modify it (in the
spirit of pine) to be an option.

[Hisashi T Fujinaka]

I am doing what I like, top-posting, which is what you need to do if you
run Outlook (a requirement at work). Threading is very poor on Outlook,
and the stupid gui takes up a lot of screen real-estate. So you need to
do two things that really annoy UNIX users and which used to really
annoy me:

One, top post, so you can see what the most recent reply is.

Two, leave the entire thread because you're never going to be able to
find the previous emails because of the broken threading (and the volume
of email I get.)

Also, you curse the "clever" people who leave comments inline because
Outlook displays things incorrectly.

I work for a large company and finding another job is non-trivial, so
there are reasons I've had to modify my behaviors and now I just wonder
why there still are people who have the time to complain about
top-posting.

Post by Lucio Chiappetti

Post by M.RossARR
While reply top posting seems wrong, it is a common habit for most

Me too, I hate top posting (and full quoting too)
http://sax.iasf-milano.inaf.it/~lucio/Procmail/noquotenohtml.html

Post by M.RossARR
I will assume most users set it for bottom! Makes sense!

I have it set to signature at bottom. However I might appreciate that
[writes new message at top ABOVE signature]
signature at top
entire forwarded message

Post by M.RossARR
Yet when reply is triggered, the cursor is always found at the top
waiting to type, so off goes the writer top posting! It's natural!

Not for me ... I consider natural to do what follows WHEN REPLYING. Composer
starts with

Post by M.RossARR
message with indentation suffix
in its entirety
for many lines

signature at bottom
The what I do is
[possible brief introduction added on top]

Post by M.RossARR
message with indentation suffix

[ snipped and interspersed with my comments]

Post by M.RossARR
for not so many lines

[ snipped and interspersed with my comments]
signature at bottom
I.e. I start at top, go through the original message, snip the parts I'm not
going to reply, and insert my comments to those I leave in. THIS seems
natural to me.

Post by M.RossARR
May I suggest to whoever, for a future update (I understand Pine is
dead so Alpine), if technically possible - being software it should
be, the cursor be programmed to start in position for reply just
above the signature block a line or two, which would normally be at

If anybody is going to follow your suggestion, I'd modify it (in the spirit
of pine) to be an option.

[David Forrest]

Sorry for you I am. Difficult it is I find reading your post. Upside down
it is. X-Authentication-Warning, chris.i8u.org: htodd owned process doing
-bs really. A better mailer get soon. Making it readable for you I
am.

Dave

David Forrest e-mail ***@maplepark.com
Maple Park Development Corporation http://www.maplepark.com
St. Louis, Missouri

Post by Hisashi T Fujinaka
I am doing what I like, top-posting, which is what you need to do if you
run Outlook (a requirement at work). Threading is very poor on Outlook,
and the stupid gui takes up a lot of screen real-estate. So you need to
do two things that really annoy UNIX users and which used to really
One, top post, so you can see what the most recent reply is.
Two, leave the entire thread because you're never going to be able to
find the previous emails because of the broken threading (and the volume
of email I get.)
Also, you curse the "clever" people who leave comments inline because
Outlook displays things incorrectly.
I work for a large company and finding another job is non-trivial, so
there are reasons I've had to modify my behaviors and now I just wonder
why there still are people who have the time to complain about
top-posting.

Post by Lucio Chiappetti

Post by M.RossARR
While reply top posting seems wrong, it is a common habit for most

Me too, I hate top posting (and full quoting too)
http://sax.iasf-milano.inaf.it/~lucio/Procmail/noquotenohtml.html

Post by M.RossARR
I will assume most users set it for bottom! Makes sense!

I have it set to signature at bottom. However I might appreciate that
[writes new message at top ABOVE signature]
signature at top
entire forwarded message

Post by M.RossARR
Yet when reply is triggered, the cursor is always found at the top
waiting to type, so off goes the writer top posting! It's natural!

Not for me ... I consider natural to do what follows WHEN REPLYING.
Composer starts with

Post by M.RossARR
message with indentation suffix
in its entirety
for many lines

signature at bottom
The what I do is
[possible brief introduction added on top]

Post by M.RossARR
message with indentation suffix

[ snipped and interspersed with my comments]

Post by M.RossARR
for not so many lines

[ snipped and interspersed with my comments]
signature at bottom
I.e. I start at top, go through the original message, snip the parts I'm
not going to reply, and insert my comments to those I leave in. THIS seems
natural to me.

Post by M.RossARR
May I suggest to whoever, for a future update (I understand Pine is
dead so Alpine), if technically possible - being software it should
be, the cursor be programmed to start in position for reply just
above the signature block a line or two, which would normally be at

If anybody is going to follow your suggestion, I'd modify it (in the spirit
of pine) to be an option.

[David Morris]

Folks, this is like religion. Discuss it in a more appropriate forum. And
if you must do it 'here', pick one list or the other. I really don't need
two copies.

And when you reply, remove me from the list. I really don't need two
copies of your reply + one from each list.

David Morris

[M.RossARR]

Post by David Morris
Folks, this is like religion. Discuss it in a more appropriate forum. And
if you must do it 'here', pick one list or the other. I really don't need
two copies.

Then delete one copy or unsubscribe from one of the forums!

I am not sure what your "like religion" reference is about, but
while the question I posed applies genericly to both Pine & Alpine,
they are autonomous forums. Not everybody is signed up for both
forums. Not everybody uses both software packages. I wish to
communicate with both groups of People, not leaving anybody out, & I
am!

Thanks to Benjamin's reply, it turns out an immediate solution may
be possible for both software packages via the cursor position
token. A generic feature to both Pine & Alpine. Now everybody on
both forums know - nobody is excluded. Like Bret - only on Pine
forum!

Now if only I can get the Pine & Alpine software to cooperate!

Pine 4.64 suffers random results, & I can not get Alpine 2.00 to
install.

If I am off topic or incorrectly cross-posting, I hope the UofW
Pine/Alpine forum moderator informs me - openly.

Moderator:

Is the subject "Reply Top Posting" & cursor positioning I started
off topic for either the Pine or Alpine list?

Is Pine forum to be excluded due to Alpine forum?

Are there any other problems? Please inform me! Anybody!

--
The Best to You & Yours,
M. Ross All Rights Reserved
***@nixsyspaus.org
subj-code: alpinelist/pinelist

---end-of-message---

[M.RossARR]

Post by M.RossARR
Yet when reply is triggered, the cursor is always found at the top
waiting to type, so off goes the writer top posting! It's natural!

No, fight it, it's never natural!!

I think there are too many People out there to argue with that.
The amount of top-posting that is perpetrated I am sure proves it
more natural than not!

Post by M.RossARR
be, the cursor be programmed to start in position for reply just
above the signature block a line or two, which would normally be at
the bottom of the previous post. The only way to top post then would

I'm not sure if that can even be done - especially since I suspect a lot
of non-beginners use an external editor (including me).

As I just replied to the previous post, external editors, & other
problems, may ruin the idea to a degree. But if the idea works for
the average user, & top-posting can be at least reduced, I think you
would be happier! No?

I do like the idea, and have made the similar suggestion for GUI mail programs.
But BTW, just moving the cursor there ISN'T the solution, because replying
below _AND QUOTING THE ENTIRE MESSAGE_ is almost as bad as top-posting.

Again, there are exceptions. It may not solve all problems. People
tend to leave most of the message they reply to intact with
top-posting. I receive monsters quite often. People just type at the
top & send! Then both problems exist! Some effort must be made by
users, but People are lazy. That cannot be fixed. But maybe altered.

--
The Best to You & Yours,
M. Ross All Rights Reserved
***@nixsyspaus.org
subj-code: alpinelist
mrossarr.nixsyspaus.org/

---end-of-message---

[Dag Wieers]

Post by M.RossARR

I do like the idea, and have made the similar suggestion for GUI mail programs.
But BTW, just moving the cursor there ISN'T the solution, because replying
below _AND QUOTING THE ENTIRE MESSAGE_ is almost as bad as top-posting.

Again, there are exceptions. It may not solve all problems. People
tend to leave most of the message they reply to intact with
top-posting. I receive monsters quite often. People just type at the
top & send! Then both problems exist! Some effort must be made by
users, but People are lazy. That cannot be fixed. But maybe altered.

Indeed I think adding the cursor between the quoted text and the signature
by default could change the behaviour in some cases. Even if it does not
fit 100% of the cases (external editors, people disabling it) it may help
for the people that are not aware or do not mind.

If you needed people to vote YES!, that's exactly my vote.

[M.RossARR]

Post by M.RossARR
May I suggest to whoever, for a future update (I understand Pine is
dead so Alpine), if technically possible - being software it should
be, the cursor be programmed to start in position for reply just
above the signature block a line or two, which would normally be at
the bottom of the previous post. The only way to top post then would
be for the writer to manually move the cursor up there, which would
be an abnormal effort.

You still need to take into account what about people not using the
builtin editor like myself. Not that it matters much most likely since
one would assume such people do check things before sending.
I do like the idea and I know atleast one mail client that does it...
Probably others as well.

Obviously the idea is not perfect, nor will it solve all problems.
Users of external editors obviously would not be able to take
advantage as I can imagine.

I am sure the bottom line is check your work before sending, like
running spell-check. Reinterations prevent mistakes. I only intended
for the idea to be a crutch. With internal editor, short messages, &
normal use, it would help me & I am sure many others!

It may get People oriented to not top-post as much. Make them aware!

--
The Best to You & Yours,
M. Ross All Rights Reserved
***@nixsyspaus.org
subj-code: alpinelist
mrossarr.nixsyspaus.org/

---end-of-message---

[James Pittman]

Post by M.RossARR
While reply top posting seems wrong, it is a common habit for most
writers. I am periodically guilty! It seems natural, the software works
that way. Yet Matt makes a good argument concerning the Q&A becoming
A&Q. And with multiple replies a conversation can become a mess! Who
said what first?

The problem is that most people who top-post don't get the concept of
snipping small segments of the original message and replying to them one
at a time whilst removing what is not relevent. Instead they take the
original message as a whole and reply to it as a whole. If you're going to
do that, then there is little difference in benefit between top posting
and bottom posting. If anything, top-posting is probably better in that
circumstance because the latest response is at the top and the previous
correspondance history is just below for reference.

Top posting no doubt came about not through ignorance or use of bad email
clients, but because the classic way of replying to a letter using the
postal service or a fax machine was simply transposed into email, when
email was taken up on mass by businesses.

Academics and computer engineers came up with a superior way of
structuring emails, that allow for a more fluid dialogue that closer
emulates a face-to-face conversation than traditional written
correspondance does. But, like I say, this is about selective quoting,
segment-by-segment, not simply whether your reply goes on the top or the
bottom.

I sometimes top post from work because sometimes people EXPECT the
traditional letter style of reply, especially when I want my
correspondance to appear especially formal, which convention still
dictates this old fashioned approach to be.

So it's a matter of education really rather than laziness - people simply
don't know there's a better way, and it's not part of culture. As for the
question of cursor position, surely the cursor should be at the top in
either situation, as you'll need to go down the quotes, deleting and
snipping and replying where necessary.

James

[Lucio Chiappetti]

Post by James Pittman
Top posting no doubt came about not through ignorance or use of bad email
clients, but because the classic way of replying to a letter using the
postal service or a fax machine was simply transposed into email, when
email was taken up on mass by businesses.

Sincerely I've never expected any reply to my paper correspondence to
contain a whole copy of my original letter, ... of which I should have
already kept a copy in my archive, were it important enough.

What annoys me most in top (or bottom, but unsnipped) posting is the fact
every new message is including all previous messages which are ALREADY
archived in my folders ... and of which I DO NOT need any duplicate ... so
in fact I have a procmail recipe which gets rid of that useless crap.

Including entire messages in a reply makes sense when FORWARDING a
correspondence threads to somebody who was not involved at the beginning.

However there is a better way to do that, without annoying the original
participants. That is, sending to the new person (and eventually cc: to
the other participants) a short message telling him that he (only) will
receive a copy of the previous correspondence.

Which in (al)pine can be nicely generated selecting individual messages,
and then doing Apply Forward ... and replying Yes to the question whether
one wants to send as a MIME digest.

If the other guy has also (al)pine there are tricks (which were mentioned
on this list) to expand a MIME digest in a mail folder. I do not know
about other MUAs.

[Mark Crispin]

Stop this cretinous discussion. Now.

-- Mark --

http://panda.com/mrc
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.