[Ruby] Top Posting (was Hacking Tomorrow!)

[pat eyler]

On 5/22/06, Ali Rizvi <aliabbasrizvi at gmail.com> wrote:
> Here is my position/opinion/2cents on top posting, it is kind of a middle
> ground (I am not sure if it would is persuasive enough to change the
> founding members' religion but  I am not even trying to do that).

I'm not sure it's possible.

>
> I think if you are responding directly to someone's question in the thread
> then it makes perfect sense to copy the question and answer it below the
> question (like what Eric did to my rubyforge SLA question, nice and
> readable).
>
> On the other hand if you are just posting a reply on the thread that is not
> a response to a direct question and is just a new thought, opinion or
> suggestion there is no harm in top posting as it does not make sense for
> other reading it to scroll through a lot of context. This would work best
> with relevant subject like one of my pet peeves (although I have mistakenly
> sent and regretted an empty subject line occassionally I try to have a
> relevant subject always).
>

I think selective quoting and putting your comments/responses/answers
immediately below the message you're responding to is a much better
way to keep the needed context.

If you really are posting something entirely new, please do  two things:
*  don't leave a bunch of junk quoted in your email, start with a clean page.

*  consider whether this email is really a part of the current thread or needs
   to be broken out on its own.


> I think the model I described works in the case where you want to preserve
> context (if someone just open this email they can find how the discussion
> ended up here (if they want) and get the relevant information in the best
> way possible.

If you want context, you need to keep responses and the text they refer to
close together.

>
> If you follow the golden rule then you don't even have to think about it.
>
> Take it easy.
> Ali
>
> PS: Now I messed up the nice gmail threading by changing the subject but may
> be that is a good thing.

[37 needlessly quoted lines deleted ... and it could have been worse.]

-- 
thanks,
-pate
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