[UK-CONTEST] The Linux way and parphrasing

[Andy Swiffin]

>> The MS way of replying at the top means no-one ever paraphrases, so an
>> email gets to carry the whole of the previous conversation and just
>> grows like topsy, hence the bandwidth.
>...
>
> Top posting is in contravention of the relevant RFC's [not that M$ ever
> worried about that]
> 
> Anyway - do you like reading the answer before the question ?, or are
> you a  mind reader ?

Unusually for me, I have to speak in M$ defence, on this occasion I don't think they are contravening any RFC - they may be tasteless and illogical but not illegal.  

RFC2822 which supercedes RFC822 hasn't much to say about the message body, only about the headers, e.g. " The body of a message is simply lines of US-ASCII characters".    Any quoting of a previous message is just part of the body and is totally up to the user, the only constraint being that lines MUST be less than 998 characters and SHOULD be less than 78 (hmmm seen that often contravened).

However, I'm sure that if we try a bit harder we'll be able to find some contravention in the message headers?
73

Andy
gm8oeg
ex postmaster