Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2005 14:09:50 -0400
From: "Paul Haggerty" <Paul.Haggerty at noaa.gov>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Quoting
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

Which doesn't change the facts at all.  Top posting works just fine
in the majority of situations.  The only time when it is a problem is
when you are trying to read through a thread for the first time.
If you've been following the thread, then you only need the last
post (maybe two) to refresh your memory and the new material
is the most important.  And therefore placing it at the top where
people can read it helps everybody in the process.  Having new
material constantly appended to the bottom of an increasing
series of posts just makes it more and more difficult to read the
thread.  This can hardly be considered an optimal strategy since
initial entry into a thread is the more rare circumstance..

Of course if people would trim their posts to hold only the most
relevant quoted material it wouldn't make make even less difference.
But they don't.  And as long as they don't, bottom posting is, for
me, a real pain in the butt.  In your case, you did trim the material
(as did I) and so bottom- or top-posting is pretty much irrelevant.

You have a point that trying to intersperse comments within
a top-posted chain is a problem, but for the vast majority of
posts, things are either entirely top-posted, or entirely bottom
posted, so it's really not an issue.  And if you have to intersperse,
then delete everything but chunk you're responding to and have
at it.  When responding to interspersed comments, people
automatically respond with interspersed responses as well
(except for the "Me too" crowd, but they should be shot anyway.)

I say again, in the vast majority of situation it makes no difference,
so why the holy war? I don't yell at people for bottom posting
(despite the fact that it can be really irritating), so why do people
suddenly feel they have the right, if not duty, to correct my serious
breech of civilized behavior!

Top post when appropriate, bottom post when appropriate,
intersperse when appropriate.

And beheading to people who quote the entire bloody digest
regardless of where they put their new material!

Paul

Steve Smith wrote:

>Near as I can tell, top-posting was invented by Microsoft; whether in
>ignorance (Microsoft seems to think that they invented the computer and
>everything that goes with it) or as a deliberate incompatibility (like
>backslashes for directory separators), I don't know.
>
>Top posting only works if you're using e-mail as a sort of instant
>messenger, where each post is only a couple of lines.  If the mail is of
>any length at all, it is impossible to tell what you're referring to in
>the original post.  Interspersing replies to the quotes in a top-posted
>message chain results in garble.
>
>And that doesn't even get in to what happens on a mailing list digest
>when everybody top posts and nobody trims.  Been there, done that, no fun.
>
--

Paul Haggerty
Science and Technology Corporation
NESDIS/NOAA
Phone: 301-457-5258 x142
E-mail: Paul.Haggerty at noaa.gov