Top posting

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

I'm not usually someone who gets upset by top posting. I've been known
to do it myself on occasion. But on this list I'm seeing a real
epidemic of:

====
A couple of paragraphs of text responding to various points
and adding new thoughts as well.

Joe Smith wrote:

> Several more paragraphs of stuff related to a bunch of topics
> only some of which are being responded to.
====

This makes it much more difficult to follow this mailing list than
it needs to be. Can I ask people to:

 * Trim the quoted text to just enough to give the context to
   what you are saying. I shouldn't have to go back and find
   the original email to understand what you are saying. I shouldn't
   have to read the entire original again if I've already read it.

 * Reply after the quoted text, not before.

 * If you are responding to several points, post the reply to
   each one after an appropriate section of quoted text.

These are principles that have stood the test of time for mailing
list communication and will make things easier on everyone.

Thanks!
                                         - Owen