On Tuesday 25 October 2005 00:31, Duncan Booth wrote: > P.S. James, *please* could you avoid top-quoting
Were it not for Steve Holden's providing me with a link off the list, I would have never known to what it is you are referring. I have read some relevant literature to find that this is more widely known as "top-posting". I'll go with majority rules here, but I would like to say that my lack of "netiquette" in this matter comes from practicality and not malice. I have read many a letter both in-line quoted and/or top-posted and have never really made a distinction between the two. Both styles have been very easy for me to follow in the past using my mouse wheel (first added to the mouse device circa 1995, when a 486/DX33 was still considered a powerful machine). I'm sorry if I can't find a dumb terminal for a "VAX" with which to read my email. Perhaps, if i could, I would understand your frustration a little better. The only reason I'm making a point of this is that many people come to python from fields other than computer science or hacker-ology. Posting styles will vary considerably among these people, so deal with the deviants carefully. Their differences in styles, like mine, probably arise from the culture of their respective fields. Most, like me, may not even know what the heck you are talking about. Also, here is a well written synopsis of the arguments in favor of top-posting and they may even be strong enough to legitimize the practice: http://alpage.ath.cx/toppost/toppost.htm In light of these arguments, I hereby reserve the right to revert to top-posting if the compulsion overwhelms me. James -- James Stroud UCLA-DOE Institute for Genomics and Proteomics Box 951570 Los Angeles, CA 90095 http://www.jamesstroud.com/ -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list