Reply at the top or reply at the bottom?

[GWB]

If I may offer yet another religious and political view on top posting
versus bottom posting versus inline, I tend to use whatever is the
default of the email client, and then try to imagine I'm communicating
with individuals of varying familiarity with the language.  If it's
English, I try to summarise and answer in one sentence or paragraph
and quote the pertinent text in that paragraph with <<quotes>>.  I
then try to expand somewhat more in a second paragraph if necessary.
Then if the mood strikes me I'll warn that everything after that is
tl;dr and let each recipient on the list decide if it is worth reading
through.

This works with top posting.  It gives readers more context if they
find that helpful.  It warns readers who need less context to skip
what they don't need. I'm told this method also tends to mimic how
individuals develop skills in other languages.

The test of this reply is tl;dr.  Skip it if you don't need it.
VaxMail, mailx, and other older clients (pine, elm) work fine, but
gmail's browser client has the advantage of being largely OS agnostic
with decent spam detection.  The huge disadvantage is that you are
trusting google with your data, but who knows, maybe with encryption
that is less risky (but my guess is that Google can decrypt any data
on their servers).  Pick your poison.  I pay for google business to
host our domain, so that if they become too intrusive we can just
change our mail server settings and move elsewhere.  But most people
are pretty much stuck with whatever their mail host (and employer)
offers.

Gordon

On Fri, Apr 21, 2017 at 2:37 PM, Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave
Ltd) <drkirkby at kirkbymicrowave.co.uk> wrote:
> On 21 April 2017 at 14:15, David Carlson <david.carlson.417 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I do not have an answer to this question, so I am asking for others' views.
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>
>
>> Based on this, is there (1) an email client that keeps all this straight
>> and (2) has the preferred placement for replies changed?
>>
>> David C
>>
>
> I think bottom posting is much better when its a mailing list or similar,
> as its much easier to see the context that someone is writing about.
>
> If the communication is between just a couple of people, then top-posting
> can be more convenient, as you know what each other are talking about.
>
> What does cause a lot of confusion, especially on mailing lists, is when
> there's a lot of old totally irrelevant material. Again, I see that as less
> of an issue when only communicating with one person.
>
> But this topic is like religion!
>
>
> Dr. David Kirkby Ph.D CEng MIET
> Kirkby Microwave Ltd
> Registered office: Stokes Hall Lodge, Burnham Rd, Althorne, Essex, CM3 6DT,
> UK.
> Registered in England and Wales, company number 08914892.
> http://www.kirkbymicrowave.co.uk/
> Tel: 07910 441670 / +44 7910 441670 (0900 to 2100 GMT only please)
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