[Cialug] Re: top-posting (was: Network slowness)

[Nathan Stien]

On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 12:51 PM, Jeff Chapin <chapinjeff at gmail.com> wrote:

> Bottom posting is posting *below* the reply, forcing you to have to
> scroll through the entire message replied to to get to the reply --
> which is why "bottom-posters" also tend to be "trimmers". On the flip
> side of the coin are the people (myself included) that think that the
> most relevant data should be at the top for easy, quick access -- which
> also allows you to avoid trimming, and thus have full context with
> messages.
>

I am reminded of this old chestnut:

  A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
  Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
  A: Top-posting.
  Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

This mailing list is archived, and most of us use email clients that store
past emails, so the context is still available even if you completely
discard it.  And besides, the point of trimming is to increase the
signal-to-noise ratio of the context.  You leave the good stuff -- five
copies of the Cialug mailing list footer are not useful context in any case.

With personal emails, I am not above top-posting to send a quick reply.  But
I think a multiparty discussion like this is easier to follow with
bottom/interleaved posting and trimming.

Just my (unrequested) $0.02.

- Nathan
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