"Joseph McDonald" <joe / vpop.net> wrote:
[...]
>I happen to prefer replies *above* the quoted text (and sometimes
>interspersed when warranted).  However, I will try to post below
>the message I am replying to until (and if) the netiquitte for
>this group is changed.

I certainly hope "if".  Many years of experience with
Usenet left me strongly preferring original context
left in.  (And indications, as I did above, of where
content was removed.)

I have always been irritated with the fact that many
mailers decided that the existing quoting conventions
established over many years were inadequate and chose
to by default keep the original message as an
attachment at the bottom.  (Thereby making it much
more difficult than it needs to be to carry on a
single conversation about multiple parallel topics...)

>It is a pain to have to scroll down through a message you have
>already read to get to the meat of the new message, but I'm sure
>people have their reasons for wanting it like that (for now).

If you carry on many conversations (as I do) it is
very nice to always have context in front of the
message.  Otherwise I am often left adrift, having
to guess what point people are responding to.

IMHO the best solution to the pain you talk about is
to selectively quote so that there is not that much
to read before getting to new material.  Certainly
if there is enough left that scrolling through it
becomes a pain, then more should have been cut.

Cheers,
Ben
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