Re: [Pan-users] top posting

[Charles Kerr]

On Tue, Oct 21, 2003 at 10:33:15PM +0100, Vigil wrote:
> Thanks for making me scroll through all of that to get at what you wanted to
> say. You should have top-posted so I could have examined the quoted article 
> you
> were referring to at my leisure.
> 
> In case you're new to the discussion, I have quoted the article I am referring
> to below.
> 
> And this came from the maker of Pan itself! ;)
> 
> On Tue, 21 Oct 2003, Charles Kerr charles-at-rebelbase.com |Pan Users' 
> Mailing List| wrote:
> 
> >On Tue, Oct 21, 2003 at 02:29:33PM -0400, brett holcomb wrote:
> >> The bottom line is that either works and I should have the
> >> choice to turn of a warning I consider misguided. In
> >> something like this shouldn't be forced to adhere to
> >> someones definition of right.  I understand what I'm doing
> >> and don't want to have to keep telling any newsreader to
> >> shutup and send the post.
> >>
> >> On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 19:17:22 +0100
> >>  Brian Morrison <address@hidden> wrote:
> >> >On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 10:15:07 -0700 in
> >> >address@hidden Anthony
> >> ><address@hidden> wrote:
> >> >
> >> >>However, when one is developing an argument or train of
> >> >>thought which
> >> >>isn't directly a reply to something previously written,
> >> >>and one wants
> >> >>to keep the previously written  material for context,
> >> >>top posting is
> >> >>appropriate. References in papers are footnotes, not
> >> >>headnotes, and
> >> >>similarly, top-posting draws the attention to the new
> >> >>content, while
> >> >>leaving the old content available for reference or
> >> >>context.
> >
> >This article is already a good example of why top-posting doesn't
> >work well, as its flow goes from the middle (Anthony's message),
> >then the lower middle (Brian's), then jumps to the top (Brett's),
> >then to the bottom (mine).
> >
> >Either top-posting or bottom-posting works, but only if it's the
> >same convention that everyone else is posting.  Since the vast
> >majority of posters use bottom-posting, that's what Pan enforces.
> >
> >Anyway, I'm not going to get into an argument about the virtues
> >of top- or bottom- posting.  That's been discussed many, many times
> >before and the conclusions are available to anyone via Google.
> >If you insist on writing annoying messages without having Pan annoy
> >you back, the code to comment out is in check_top_posting() in
> >pan/base/message-check.c.  I'm happy that you're using Pan, but
> >I'm not going to put in a preferences button to disable these warnings.

Now, this is just silly. :)