Re: [VM] Email dangers portrayed in media

[James Freer]

Thanks for the link

On Sun, 28 Oct 2012, Uday Reddy wrote:

> The BBC has made a brilliant series called the "The Thick of It", a
> political satire dealing with British politics and how the politicians
> interact with the media.

Not sure i'd describe it as a brilliant series.... very poor compared with Yes 
Minister (years ago now) which was a bit more convincing. All the swearing and 
sexual connotations really spoil what could be quite entertaining.

> has a brilliant segment dealing with how the stupid email reply conventions
> used by Outlook-users (and now Thunderbird-users) can get people into
> trouble by exposing information that should have been private.  You will
> enjoy watching it.
>
> I also know instances at work where this kind of thing has gotten people
> into serious trouble.  Somebody should make a law prohibiting the so-called
> "top-posting style" of replies.  But, the public doesn't yet know that all
> this happens just because of the idiocy of the tech people.

Trouble is with 'Top Posting' is that i believe it was inherited from 
corporate Intranet. Emails would be cut off after so many lines automatically. 
The first internet email providers copied it. Daft with yahoo groups where one 
can have a thread which gets loads of replies... and gets bigger and bigger 
until someone chops off the bottom at some stage. Gmail UI doesn't help the user 
as it hides the rest of the previous replies. Thing is folk are lazy... it's 
easier to top post and forget the rest. Blackberry phones and others have 
followed suite. CVs - usual to put previous jobs in reverse chronological order.

I agree that bottom posting is better and chronological order is better. 
[although with many replies the indent gets bigger with each reply so longer 
threads have to be chopped top and bottom]. Most linux groups/lists prefer it 
apart from one i've found - reason being that top posts allows the moderators to 
review posts quicker than bottom posting. As much as i'd like to see bottom 
posting established as the norm... don't think it'll ever happen. Apart from 
linux group emails... i have not received ONE that has been bottom posted. Every 
time i've replied bottom posting (non linux groups) i've received a reply top 
posted - i've tried to 'rescue the world'.... it's a losing battle!

Now i just top post apart from linux groups and that's how it'll be - i can't 
see how folk are going to be persuaded otherwise [human's lazy by nature].

james