Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Quoting styles

Hi,

nobody wants to hurt, harm or insult you.

It is just that 95% of all public mailing lists have this two simple rules:
no top posting
no html

A lot of people don't even read html mails, some even get angry about them, so 
when somebody tells you, not to send them, (s)he does it to help you.
The less people reading your mails, the less usefull answers you get.
And some mailing lists are very harsh - one html mail and you are the ass of 
the week for them. 

Plus, not using html does spare you and everybody else some time 
sending/receiving your mails, so it is a double win for everybody when you 
don't use it.

That is all.

You are, of course, free to send plain text and html, but as I said, most 
people don't read html mails anyway, so it is just some wasted bandwith.

When you are exchanging mails off list, it is a completly different topic. If 
your friends read html-mails and don't mind receiving them - or even like 
them, you are free to send them as you like.

But mailing lists are a little bit different - because there are a lot of 
receivers.

And did I mention, that some people discard html-mails automatically as spam?

So, when you got told not to top post or use html mails, (s)he didn't want to 
do anything 'bad' to you - the opposite is true, (s)he wants to help you to 
reach as many other users as possible - which should be what you want, right?

Sometimes this 'educating' may sound much harsher than ment - but don't 
forget, that for a lot of people on this (or every public) mailing list 
english is only the second or third language - and hitting the right 'tone' 
is not easy, if you are not a native speaker.

So don't feel bad - we all just want to help you, to make the mailing list as 
productive and helpfull for you as possible.

Glück Auf
Volker

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