** Sometime around 16:47 -0800 11/23/2005, Chuq Von Rospach said:
>where I've seen this stuff used, or where I've experimented iwth it,
>it's been an absolute failure. it doesn't "teach" users "better"
>habits, it teaches users how to circumvent the filters.
Disagree with you (for a change), Chuq. On our lists, the server
bounces messages for over-quoting, and the Listmoms(tm) bounce
messages (on specific mailing lists) for top posting. In neither case
do users, as a practice, circumvent the filters (there are
exceptions, but we have an active Listmom(tm) team, so the exceptions
are singletons FTMP, and are rare in any event).
However (and this is a big 'however' for Roger), what we've observed
is that some users get kinda pissy when their posts are rejected for
top posting. Of the ones who get pissy, some will attempt to debate
with the Listmoms the relative merits of top posting vs. threaded
posting (as we call it), and most of them will simply refuse to
reformat their message and re-post it. [1]
** Sometime around 00:40 +0000 11/24/2005, lee said:
>I wouldn't have such views on the mail lists I admin, because I
>believe such things are the personal choice of the poster with pros
>and cons from both sides.
We have very pragmatic ration^W justifications for banning top
posting in favor of threaded posting:
1. The vast majority of cases in which the poster has quoted an
entire message are top-posted replies. To put a number on it, it's
probably in excess of 90%. In any event, it's very highly correlated
-- and it's very lazy.
2. Top posting yields a poorly formatted daily digest. This is partly
due to excessive quoting, and partly because the interspersing of
top-posted messages and threaded-style messages makes it damned near
impossible to decipher. [2]
So it's not merely a matter of personal choice IMNSHO, as the
"personal choice" affects the readability of the list as well as the
readability of the daily digest. [3] IOW, it affects every other
subscriber on the list.
In the end, whether a list owner imposes (or attempts to impose) a
specific posting format and/or set of posting guidelines on a list
is, IMO, largely a function of the nature and character of the list.
For that reason, we have imposed a threaded posting requirement on
some of our lists, but not all of them. No matter what you do, you
might as well assume that some people will not be happy with it. And
that includes the do-nothing option (i.e., no list policy, leave it
up to the individual poster), as well.
<joke>Say, anyone want to talk about Reply-To munging?</joke>
__________________________________________________________________________
Vince Sabio vince@vjs.org
[1] It is worth noting that there are some subscribers who like the
threaded posting requirement enough to request that we extend it to
other lists that we host. In all fairness, there are far fewer voices
of praise on this point than there are voices of criticism -- but
then, that's human nature, so it's to be expected.
[2] It can be argued that the interspersing problem is as much the
fault of threaded posting as top posting -- and I'd say you're right,
but I'd also remind you that over-quoting is still correlated with
top posting -- so if we had to pick one format and stick with it,
we'd pick threaded posting. And, in fact, that's exactly what we did.
[3] Sure, there's a MIME digest option. But I'm not going to tell the
subscribers that they must subscribe to the MIME digest in order to
get a readable digest in their mailbox each day. It is also worth
noting that about 75% of our digest subscribers receive the
plain-text version, not the MIME version. In some cases, it is out of
ignorance, but there are cases in which we recommend the MIME digest
to a subscriber (for one reason or another), and have had the
subscriber state a preference for the plain-text digest.
Follow-Ups:
References:
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