Forum Improvement suggestion: automatic Top vs Bottom posting, interspersing, and BUTTONS
- Posted by DanM May 14, 2009
- 698 views
TOP RESPONSE:
Without intending to start a philosophical war here, I post above because I find this most efficient for the way I work. The first text seen is the message I am reading/responding to and I only read the quoted material that follows if I need it. In a threaded message list like EUForum (as I use it) quotes are usually not even necessary, except when the thread "forks" into several subthreads (anyone ever notice that?) and it is necessary to figure out what the current message is responding to. If the Forum consensus is to always put the latest message at the bottom, I guess I can be trained, but not easily!
George (see below)
Is there any particular reason you guys are posting your responses above the quotes? It doesn't seem to flow with the logic of the conversation... 
Where's Juergen when we need him?
A: Because it considerably reduces the readability of the text.
Q: Why?
A: Top posting.
Q: What is annoying in e-mail and news?
Matt
BOTTOM RESPONSE:
Without intending to start a philosophical war here, I post above because I find this most efficient for the way I work. The first text seen is the message I am reading/responding to and the quoted material that follows is only used if I need it. In a threaded message list like EUForum (as I use it) quotes are usually not even necessary, except when the thread "forks" into several subthreads (anyone ever notice that?) and it is necessary to figure out what the current message is responding to. If the Forum consensus is to always put the latest message at the bottom, I guess I can be trained, but not easily!
George
(see above)
Well, there's a semi-obvious solution to the concerns about top vs bottom responding, at least when a response is NOT "broken" and interspersed with the original post (which is often the most readable, but also most currently difficult to achieve):
have forum allow a "user preference" for having responses SHOWN TO A SPECIFIC USER as either top or bottom, and then have any non-broken up response shown as user preference dictates.
That way everyone can MAKE responses according to their "style" (top or bottom), and also READ everyone else's responses, regardless of the original posting style, in the users personally preferred style, top or bottom.
Perhaps, at the same time or instead, a new forum tag, "<addHere>", "<endAdd>", could be created, to make interspersing responses with sections of quoted original easier?
And, buttons to accomplish the above and text bolding etc?
Dan
