Re: bottom / top posting - Mailing list pgsql-general

On Wed, Jun 9, 2021 at 11:42 PM Dean Gibson (DB Administrator)
<postgresql@mailpen.com> wrote:
...
> Top-posting has been the predominantly common practice in the business & government world for decades,
& it is easy to adapt to.  Just like HTML eMail (within reason) & more
than 80 columns on a line.

Yeah, but I disliked it even before HTML was invented. 80 columns is a
different kind of problem, and this days nearly every mua does wraping
either on send or on display.

The problem I found is top is easier when discussing simple things and
doing ping-pong conversations. For the mails in this list, which I
read daily more or less, and which have convoluted discussions, I find
it , especially the untrimed versions normally used by top posters
much harder.

> Somehow, millions of ordinary people are able to adapt to this, on very popular network eMail providers, like Google
groups& groups.io, as well as their work environment. 

Oh, I can adapt. I can process it, and in fact I faithfully copy the
sender style when at work, after all I'm paid for it. But on things
like this, technical discussions which I read ocasionally, I
appreciate being able to read just a half page top down without
bouncing. And you bounce a lot.

> I suppose it comes from the practice in those environs when paper memos were the norm, & if you needed to attach the
contentsof other paper memos to your own for context, you stapled them to the BACK of your own. 

Because the alternative was to rewrite?

....

> I wonder about the tolerance of the world we live in.  Somehow, I can deal with top-posting, bottom-posting,
middle-posting,HTML eMail, straight-text eMails, 80-column eMails, variable-width eMails, occasional ALL CAPS eMails, &
stupidmulti-line signatures, all without getting my tail in a knot over it. 

I tolerate it, but my tolerance levels differ. I can deal with all of
that, and try to not complain too much, but nobody is a good self
judge. Currently I open the list in gmail 4k screen, lateral tabs,
fits about a full page of text easily, if I cannot understand a
message from a glance I normally just delete it. I'm not forcing
anyone ro repost it. And the longer this things appear the less I try
to do it. People are free to use any style, I'm free to discard the
ones I do not like.

> But then, I was VERY successful in my software development career, consulting at about 30 companies (now retired).
Maybeworking with others without conflict on silly issues, had something to do with it. 

That is work. I do not do consulting, and my people skills are not too
good, but I haven't had complains and I certainly do not try to make
people adopt any style, I just do tit for tat and go on. I care about
the quality of postings in this lists, I do not care at all about the
quality of mails I receive at work. My employer probably cares more,
as he pays me to read them and would like for me to spend as little
time as possible.

Francisco Olarte.