Brian,
I'll add, probably much to Shal's dismay, that the trend toward
"automating everything" just results in more and more and more having
to be automated because users are never taught how to do simple
things themselves.
[voice=curmudgeon] Yeah, first they put wheel-y things on yer sled, then they put an engine on that. But no, can't be bothered to turn a simple crank so they put an e-lec-tric motor on the starting shaft. Heck, what was wrong with shank's mare? [\voice]
Actually, I'm far from dismayed and would prefer that people take the time to quote selectively. I don't even mind top posted replies, but would prefer that the member trim everything but the relevant part. I'll settle for the immediately preceding message as a whole, but would rather have just that part of it which gives context to the reply.
And in fact, contrary to current practice, I do wish more people would include some quote from the prior message for context. That's one thing I DO NOT like about the current digests: too often a member's message is incomprehensible (or could be misread) for lack of context.
If there exist, and I do not doubt that there do, interfaces that do
not allow trimming of quoted content the solution to that is to ask
for an interface change.
I don't even know how to non-sarcastically express my doubts on the success of that effort (asking Apple or Google to change their user interfaces for us).
Or of convincing my membership not to use such interfaces. I don't think that telling one's membership that the group does not welcome, or is not compatible with, the use of mobile devices is a winning strategy for any group that seeks to serve a broad audience.
I actually do not get, at any level, the resistance to trying to
teach netiquette seems to get from many quarters these days.
Being polite is one thing. On that and other points of netiquette I fully agree.
But the never-ending battle over top-posts and trailing quotes has gone past being simply a matter of netiquette. I've long upheld in Yahoo Groups the requirement that long trailing quotes be trimmed (past the immediate predecessor). Because otherwise the digests can be nearly hopeless.
On the Groups.io platform it can (and has) been argued that the software solution is good enough that this is no longer something on which a group moderator need waste his/her time and effort.
Shal
Shal Farley