[rescue] Top vs. Bottom posting (was: revived: TiBook G4 867...)

[Liam Proven]

On 13 April 2018 at 13:05, Mark Benson <md.benson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I almost exclusively post from my phone, because I usually read the list
> during breaks at work where I don't log into my personal mail on their PCs.
> I actually hate using email on desktops because the clients these days are
> ropey as hell (yes, hello Thunderbird, here's lookin at you)

I agree, they are. It's a category in sad decline.

On my work desktop, I've tried Thunderbird, Claws, Sylpheed,
Evolution, Balsa, GNUstep Mail, KMail and others. All have glaring
flaws.

Thunderbird is generally the best but it's a bloated mess these days.

Claws does the job but with classic Unix user-friendliness, i.e., very
little.

Most of the rest did not do stuff I absolutely require, such as
background fetching.

It's why I use Gmail as my home client now. It too has many flaws and
is getting worse, not better, but it's about as good as it gets.

> I'm using the default GMail phone app from Google, it works just fine as
> long as you know how. Just tap the '. . .' in the message body!

Same as the desktop client, then. :-)

> I found K9
> clunky and poorly laid out UI-wise.

Agreed.

> Outlook was certainly what used to cause headaches back in the desktop era
> for sure. I remember being an LEM list admin and it was a problem back then
> too, especially with people posting from MS software.

Yep. There was a time when I recommended it as the business email
client of choice. By Outlook 98, I regretted this. After 2000 or so, I
was growing to hate it.

Many say it's OK with Exchange, but it's really not -- and Exchange
has many horrific problems of its own.

I hate the whole damned stack and all the layers individually.

> Frankly it's largely contextual for my 2 cents. If it's a long thread, lots
> of points that need replying to such as you'd find in a mailing list, yes,
> bottom posting is prettymuch required. As you say it's easier to follow. I
> try to, even on my phone. I slip sometimes because of aforementioned lazy
> habits. I think going as far as calling it rude and disruptive is a tad
> strong, it's inconvenient for sure though, but in this modern age I've come
> to accept it with a slight roll of the eyes and a sigh (especially when I
> do it myself!!) :). Life's too short to push up my blood pressure over it.

I wish I could agree but it still gets to me. :-(

> If it's a one shot reply to something, usually between me and 1 other, I
> tend not to bother. It's actually easier to quickly read replies like that
> if it's the first thing in the mail, a valid point my boss made when I
> asked him about it some years ago (he's a prettymuch died-in-the-wool top
> poster). We've had cases where, when replying at the bottom of stuff,
> customers have missed information. So, horses for courses as it were.

I've met that too.

> You may also notice I still sign my emails with a standard singature
> delimiter '-- <cr><cr>' which makes them easier to trim off, and a
> surprising number of clients still support that.

I'd jolly well hope so, too! ;-)

--
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