point of style (was Re: Proposed F19 Feature: New firstboot)

[Przemek Klosowski]

On 01/29/2013 12:31 PM, Chris Murphy wrote:
>
> On Jan 29, 2013, at 5:43 AM, Alec Leamas <leamas.alec at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> Please don't top-post [1]
>>
>> [1]
>> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines#If_You_Are_Replying_to_a_Message
>
>>
>>
> It's amusing that it doesn't explain why. It just says don't do it.
> Top posting fails worse than bottom posting when what's quoted is
> poorly trimmed bottom posting. The lack of trim is common in both
> styles. But if done aggressively, I don't see the problem, e.g. had
> I top posted in this case, it would not be a real problem (vs an
> imaginary one).

There's an old saying that 'punctuality is the courtesy of the kings'.
Nowadays, careful editing of correspondence seems to have become as 
precious as the courtesy of the kings. It is hard to follow a message 
that has lots of boilerplate quoted or cut-and-paste material, with 
interesting, relevant content hidden at the end. In extreme, it makes a 
mockery of the common recommendation for bottom-posting --- if the 
quoted material is dumped indiscriminately in front of the new content, 
it would actually be less hard to read if it was top-posted, especially 
on the mobile devices that more of us use nowadays.

In other words, literate persons are expected to weave the trimmed 
quotes and their responses into a coherent message --- that's the true 
meaning of "bottom-posting". In contrast, 'top-posting' implies giving 
up on trimming and editing for context.

The point here is that careful editing makes huge difference to the
reader. Sure, it takes time and effort --- as Seneca said, "I apologize
for this very long letter but I was out of time" --- but the goal of
writing is to communicate, so if it is worth doing at all, it is worth
doing well.

Please forgive this older colleague for droning on. I thought it could 
strengthen or inspire someone's resolve to keep up the style, and so 
would not be impolite to send it to the list even though most postings 
here are usefully edited.