-----Original Message-----
From: owner-mail-ng(_at_)mail(_dot_)imc(_dot_)org
[mailto:owner-mail-ng(_at_)mail(_dot_)imc(_dot_)org] On Behalf Of Martin
Duerst
Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 8:57 PM
To: mail-ng(_at_)mail(_dot_)imc(_dot_)org
Subject: Re: More user-visible goals
At 11:07 04/02/25 -0500, Bruce Lilly wrote:
- users want to be able to see relevant related material in
context, in an
appropriate order of presentation, and without having to read
irrelevant parts of previous exchanges. [Yes, that
means "top-posting
is abhorrent" (possibly excepting languages where reading
bottom-to-top
is normal)]
Sorry for the sidetracking, but there are some very good and
some very bad examples of "top-posting", and some very good
and very bad reasons for it.
The worst reason is simple lazyness. The best reason is
accessibility; it's much easier for e.g. blind people to
start with the new text and go down if necessary than the
other way round.
The good cases are cases where the new text is general, but
where the previous mail is left there because somebody may
prefer to scroll down to remind them of the context rather
than figure out otherwise.
I really hope that mail-NG message content will be structured enough to
be able to drop the "top-posting" and "bottom-posting" altogether. Using
e.g. XML, one could ensure that it is unambiguously indicated which part
of a message is an answer to which part of another message. Then it will
be up to the client to decide which way to structure the information.
This can be used to solve the problem of receivers having really little
control over the structuring and displaying of messages.
Yours sincerely,
--
Victor Engmark
Quid quid latine dictum sit, altum viditar - What is said in latin,
sounds profound