Dragaera

META: Quoting styles

David Dyer-Bennet dd-b at dd-b.net
Fri Jun 7 13:15:04 PDT 2002

"Michael S. Schiffer" <mss2 at attbi.com> writes:

> It might not be a bad idea for the list to settle on a standard for
> quoting previous articles.  (Such a standard could even go into an FAQ
> for the list, as and when.)  I personally like Usenet-style quoting,
> where responses immediately follow the points they're responding to
> and extraneous material gets snipped.  (I think it makes for a more
> conversational style.)  But many people like the "quote the whole
> thing and insert responses at the top" (which some e-mail programs
> encourage).  At this point, I think a majority of people here are
> doing the first, but a noticeable minority are doing the second.  I
> think exchanges go more smoothly if everyone (or at least most people)
> are following the same standard-- otherwise, in long exchanges, you
> wind up with posts where you can't tell who said what, or in what
> order.  Just a thought.

Personally, I *despise* top-posting.  It makes the quote useless, and
you can't tell what paragraph people are responding to, and it ruins
the quoting sequence of people posting properly. 
-- 
David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b at dd-b.net  /  New TMDA anti-spam in test
 John Dyer-Bennet 1915-2002 Memorial Site http://john.dyer-bennet.net
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