Ed, Not everyone agrees with the bottom-post-for-technical approach, it's a personal preference more than anything. Technomage_Hawke is using reading tools that don't skip effectively (no visual interface). It's not a lack of GUI, it's a lack of any capability to see the text, and he's absolutely correct that viewing bottom-post in a screen reader or braille reader is excruciating, at best. If you must bottom post, then you should trim out all the history you refer to below (just as I did to your split posting below) as a simple courtesy to people who can't actually use their eyes to skim over it. I've generally found the following compromise to work reasonably well: 1) top post if it makes sense to do so, if people want the history they can keep reading. 2) post interlocutory if you're responding point-by-point to something; bracket your comments with --- so the visually impaired can tell more easily when the author changes. 3) Bottom post if it's preferred on a list or if someone requests it, but remove as much of the thread history as you can so screen readers and braille devices don't have to re-read the entire conversation with every email. 4) Use a thread-aware email client to make it easier to accept that others should make their own choices in this regard. Just my thoughts, ==Joseph++ Ed wrote: > Technomage, you might try a dedicated command line news reader to > better consume PLUG emails in audio - ask Dennis about some of the > alternatives. > do you use Emacs for your speech tool? > The reason for bottom posting is made at the bottom of this email - > you can skip that. > > Ed > > Top posting is done in the business world because business emails only > get reviewed by lawyers. > Lists that may be reviewed for technical insight, or to understand a > problem should be bottom posted so that the sequence of > question-refinement-answer-confimation is preserved. > PLUG is nominally a technical list - so post as you wish, just know > that when you are scolded, you earned it. btw trimming email cruft is > appreciated. > > The ability to filter on posting style does not (yet) exist in an > email client - ymmv > and yes gmail makes a bottom posted sequence of emails very readable - > with little kbrd/mouse