Bottom posting in Mail?

Software
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I’ve never liked the standard top-posting behavior of Mail and when I was using Mail I was using the quotefix plugin to get bottom posting. Unfortunately it seem like it hasn’t been updated in a couple of years.

Is there some alternative to get the bottom posting behavior?

= jem

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Unless the text you are forwarding is your own, i think it best to simply snip out all other’s text. Can leave snippets to comment on, as appropriate. Top or bottom posting is irrelevant and sometimes dangerous as information not intended for others is released. There is way too much text sent in most emails with inappropriate forwarding. The “thread” of the conversation in email can be seen in the email client software.

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It has been a while since I have seen a debate on top posting vs bottom posting. What is the MPU consensus about top posting vs bottom posting and trimming? In my observations there appear to be two main groups: 1) the people who use email or forums to communicate with peers on the internet about various topic, like us MPUs. 2) the people who work for companies where email is a primary form of communication, but they don’t care about email per se, they just want to get their work done and have a form of escalation to managers when needed.

  1. I typically see bottom posting and trimming from this group. They tend to use proper email clients or good forum software that makes it easy to keep track of the threads. Because most people read from top to bottom, the context of the request is usually fairly clear by the time you get to the request.
  2. I typically see top posting without trimming from this group. They typically want to ask for a specific person to do something without having to read the whole thread, but they include the whole thread so they can archive just the last message for documentation purposes. They also want to be able to give the boss the whole story in case he needs to become involved.
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The deities of all the world’s religions gathered a couple of decades ago and managed to agree universally on exactly and only one thing: Bottom posting with inline replies is the only correct way to conduct an email conversation. We humans, being the creatures that we are, disregarded them. I know this to be true because I read it in the Old Testament Book of RFCs (though chapter and verse don’t spring to mind at the moment).

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While I agree with you, I am currently a heretic since I only really use email for the 2nd use case I described above. I tried to do bottom posting at work and everyone was confused. It was quite funny.

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Outlook top posts, therefore the world top posts. On average. :grin:

How to reply to email is something I used to worry about. Then I came across people who couldn’t even read and so it became moot.

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I once had a boss who told me never to assume that he actually reads the emails I used to send him.

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Yep, this what I do in mailmate, I’m now trying to figure out a solution for those who use Mail

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I had a contract assignment many years ago, where the VP of Marketing insisted on top-posting in email replies. Insisted, as though it was the only thing that could possibly make sense. It took me…a while to get used to it comply. I terminated that engagement at the first opportunity (three months). And have not worked in Marketing since. Barbarians.

I’m sad that QuoteFix doesn’t seem to be keeping up with macOS updates. It’s still working fine on my Mojave Mac, but I just got a shiny M1 MBP, and so it’s sayonara to Mojave. And, apparently, QuoteFix.

I’ve been wondering if a UI Scripting solution might be possible. Take the default reply behavior of Mail, delete two lines (to remove the blank space Mail provides for the horror of top posting), and then move the cursor to the bottom of the message.

Seems achievable, but for now, I’m just doing it manually. (Bigger fish to fry…)

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Or wouldn’t take the time! Not to sidetrack this thread but I cannot tell you how often I have graduate students ask me a question about research projects that has already been addressed in my comprehensive syllabus. Though I try hard not to show it to the students, it is extraordinarily frustrating. “Just read the syllabus!” I silently scream. :slight_smile: I find the same problem with colleagues at times when they have not taken the time to actually read the email. :slight_smile:

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I’m part of a group called Toastmasters, and they recently released a new version of their self-paced curricula. It’s significantly different than the old, so obviously there’s some confusion in transition.

Anyway, there’s a project that confuses many people, along with a “Toastmasters needs to be more clear” complaint. There are definitely opportunities to clarify, but I (and a number of others) pointed out that the project requirements are very clearly spelled out on a page called “Your Assignment”, and that perhaps members should be coached to pay particular attention to that page.

Honest-to-$deity, the incredibly common counter argument is that members - who voluntarily signed up for self-improvement purposes - not only don’t read that part, but that they shouldn’t be expected to read the project before undertaking it.

How the project could be “more clear” if people can’t be expected to read it is beyond my pay grade. :slight_smile:

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Title the page “You’re Assignment” and absolutely everyone will notice it :grin:

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Reminds me of a project manager I knew who would insert an offer of a free drink in his project plans before sending them out for review. In the review meeting he’d casually ask if anyone wanted to claim their free drink. When he was met with puzzled stares, he’d know no-one had actually read it.

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That’s great! I think I’ll offer to eliminate an assignment in my syllabus for my grad students to see who actually reads through it. :slight_smile:

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