[MlMt] Replies above or below

[Bill Cole]

On 26 Nov 2013, at 12:50, Jacques wrote:

> By default MailMate positions replies below the body of text. Almost 
> all other email clients I've used positions above.

That is a relatively recent style in mail clients called "top-posting" 
which many people find annoying for a wide range of reasons. 
Specifically for mailing lists like this one it is problematic because 
it isn't conducive to focusing discussion in a thread or entering a 
conversation late.

> So in a thread of conversation, the replies keep going bottom (me) and 
> above (others).

Which is a natural reading order: earliest content first, latest content 
last. This works better for making extended conversations accessible to 
late entrants, for trimming quoted material to relevant parts, and for 
splitting up complex discussions into smaller pieces with response 
sections inserted where they are relevant. This is sometimes called 
"bottom-posting" but that's a retronym applied to it after "top-posting" 
clients (primarily from Microsoft) became widespread. It is also 
something of a misnomer for the practice of trimming quotes and 
subdividing responses.

> Is there a particular reasoning in this?

The traditional "bottom-posting" style with trimmed quotes and split 
responses has been the norm for Internet email and its close adjuncts 
(BITNET LISTSERVs, Usenet, etc.) for decades. It may have won over 
top-posting originally because it is friendlier to systems with limited 
bandwidth & storage, but it has survived because it also is gentler to 
human "bandwidth" for complex and/or extended discussion than 
top-posting. Also, top-posting clients usually rely on heavyweight 
formatting features (i.e. HTML) to indicate quotations, and that can 
cause confusion for readers who don't use such features or use clients 
that render HTML differently than the author's.

> Is there a way to change this? (I don't see it mentioned in 
> preferences, maybe I'm missing it?)

I know of no way for MM to change the default insertion point and I'm 
glad for that. It is a matter of one click to wherever you want the 
insertion point to be, so if you really want to top-post MM won't 
prevent it.