On Mon Sep 20 19:20:03 2010, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
Traditionally, top-posting (or bottom posting) has been discouraged
in favor
of responding line by line. I think it is time to reverse that
preference.
The primary argument in favour of inline responses is that they allow
context to be retained. I certainly agree that if the responder
doesn't actually take that context into account when responding then
this advantage is quite obviously lost, but throwing away that
advantage does not strike me as a particularly useful tactic.
In particular I find that arguments are often less combative and
somewhat
shorter in mediums where people are forced to restate the issue
they are
objecting to in their own words.
One thing I noted in your post was the use of the term "opponent".
Now, this is itself a combative term, but I suspect you meant it in
the sense of a debating opponent, and you're implying by that usage,
and quite clearly expressing in the above, a call to rhetoric. In
other words, you're not actually criticising the *content*, or
technical merit, of the arguments but the way they're expressed.
Given the large porportion of IETF participants who somehow failed to
join debating clubs at exclusive universities, this disquiets me
somewhat.
Now, I'm all in favour of people avoiding being combative. But I
would far rather be shot down in flames than have my crazier ideas
accepted politely for fear of offense.
Secondly, an argument to ignore the benefits of a medium that the
participants here created seems entirely odd - surely we should
simply strive to use it *better*, rather than abandoning it?
Dave.
--
Dave Cridland - mailto:dave(_at_)cridland(_dot_)net -
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