Re: Recursive (Unary) Relatinoships
Date: 14 Nov 2000 11:44:00 GMT
Message-ID: <8ur8i0$705$1_at_news.tue.nl>
David Cressey wrote:
>
> I agree with not interspersing reply and original, but I don't agree
> with your pattern.
>
> I think you should type your entire message first, then follow it
> with the material you are quoting.
>
> This makes it very easy to detect the new message: it's right up
> front. It also happens to be the way MS Outlook, and Outlook Express
> do it.
Yes, I know *sigh*. Before the introduction of these products this was not even a topic of discussion. The standard and generally preferred way of replying has always been and remains to be *below* the quoted text. See Q7 in the chapter "Quoting Style in Newsgroup Postings" of the news.newusers.questions FAQ:
http://www.geocities.com/nnqweb/nquote.html#Q7
For a more elaborate explanation of the arguments see:
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/2000/06/14/quoting.html
I myself have been posting and reading for over a decade now and it is my experience that top posting is almost always a bad idea.
> If everybody does this, the trail of quoted material will have the
> appearance of a stack, which is pretty natural, if you ask me.
This is only the case for very simple one-on-one discussions with a simple action-reaction-rereaction-... structure with small postings. But if discussions get more complicated and more persons get involved it becomes very annoying. And because even the smallest reactions can lead to elaborate discussions it is better to anticipate such things.
Kind regards,
Jan Hidders Received on Tue Nov 14 2000 - 12:44:00 CET