On Dec 11, 2007, at 9:40 AM, Tom Lane wrote:
> Steve Atkins <steve@blighty.com> writes:
>> In the business world it's common to top-post and not cut previous
>> content
>> - and often appropriate, as it tends to be a communication between a
>> smaller number of people, and the uncut content provides context for
>> future reference.
>
>> Those who rant about anyone who top posts, or state that you should
>> never top-post are mostly clueless or arrogant, or are making over-
>> broad
>> generalizations.
>
> Sure, there are contexts where that makes sense. On the PostgreSQL
> lists, however, you are writing for the archives as much as for the
> immediate readers (and if you don't understand that, *that* is the
> first
> thing you need to learn). The in-line, trimmed-quotations style is a
> lot easier to read when looking through a thread in the archives.
> Another advantage is that trimming quoted text reduces the number of
> useless matches when searching the archives.
Which is pretty much what I said in the relevant context you removed.
The risk of removing the wrong context is that it makes it look like
we're disagreeing. :)
> In short: this is the community consensus on how to post, there are
> good reasons for it, and we need to try to educate newbies in it.
> Not just say "it's okay to ignore the conventions".
Cheers,
Steve