Top vs. bottom posting, solution proposal ;-)

[Marko Vojinovic]

On Sunday 15 October 2006 23:38, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> On Sun, 15 Oct 2006, Andy Oram wrote:
> > Marko Vojinovic wrote:
> > > So, I devoted a couple of hours of my time to write down some
> > > prototype of top/bottom post converter, creatively named
> > > top2bottom.c :-) .
> >
> > I am impressed that you thought of doing this--creating a technical
> > solution to a social problem.
>
> IMHO, implementing something like this is a really bad idea, since it
> implies that posters can revert to being sloppy about their posting
> etiquette, knowing that some technical wizardry will fix it for them.

Why is that bad? I am being very sloppy on my handwriting, knowing that a 
word-processor (ie TeX) would fix it for me. I am being sloppy on my 
spelling, knowing that a spell-checker will fix it. People are getting sloppy 
on using the brake pedal in a car these days, because they know that ABS 
mechanism will optimize breaking. People also get to be sloppy writing code, 
because compilers are intelligent enough to optimize the executable (to some 
extent, at least).

So I don't find this to be a bad idea, as long as it can deliver the 
results. :-)

> please -- i'm begging you -- do *not* start this discussion yet again.
> i could have sworn that there is now an official edict somewhere on
> redhat.com that states clearly that top posting is a *bad* *thing*.
> can we please just accept that and not go through this every month?

I can accept it, and did that a long time ago, but the flame-wars keep 
reemerging every month, as you said. I'm trying to do something to 
practically patch up the reason of their emergence, since I cannot eliminate 
it... ;-)

Best regards, :-)
Marko