Am 11.05.2021 um 19:02 schrieb Calvin Buckley <cal...@cmpct.info>: > - almost all modern mail clients are threaded, it's trivial to view > context, so I want to see replies "above the fold"
Funnily enough the fact the mail clients are threaded nowadays is a good reason for me to use inline replies with rigorously trimmed down context: Someone who is actively following the thread will have minimal overhead to see what I'm referring to and people new to the thread can scroll to previous messages to get up-to-speed. > - bottom posting goes against the grain of modern mail clients First of all: I'm advocating inline quoting, not bottom posting. I don't think this against the grain of modern clients. I have no problem going through my reply step by step, removing what is irrelevant to my reply and leave in what it relevant. At the same time it helps me to not forget something I wanted to answer. Yes, maybe mobile phones are a bit less well-equipped for this task but someone deciding to write detailed answers on a mobile phone should be willing to pay this price for the sake of the readers. > I personally top-post (as it's the default for all the mail clients I > use) when replying unless it's a point-by-point reply, in which case I > reply inline. I think you're pointing out exactly why a lot of long-time users of mailing lists prefer inline replies: Your personal (or even work) emails might often consist of nothing more than "I agree" or "Let's meet up", mailing lists are used for more in-depth discussions. This means that the threshold for writing to the mailing list should be higher, i.e. a mail will probably contain multiple parts like an introduction, an explanation and a conclusion or question. Therefore answers are often more complex too and reply to multiple points. Another reason I sometimes hear at work is that you can forward a top-posting emails more easily to someone new to a thread. But this applies much less to a mailing list as people are normally subscribed to the list already and even if not there is an archive of all messages they can check for older messages if necessary. Now while inline replies work for both point-by-point replies as well as short answers (you just strip down the original text to a minimum before adding your one-liner) the same is not true to top or bottom posting. They only work in simple cases unless you want to either copy/paste or (worse) paraphrase the original text within your answer. Both of these options are basically weaker versions of the inline quoting style (which as an additional bonus also support multiple levels of quoting). Sure, some answers can be simple enough for top/bottom posting, but then again you have to ask yourself: Is this interesting enough for the 100s of people on this mailing list? And if inline quoting works almost as well for simple answers, why not use it all the times so the reader does not have to switch reading modes? - Chris -- PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List To unsubscribe, visit: https://www.php.net/unsub.php
