>But: I AGREE ABOUT BOTTOM-POSTING! Who wants to read anything written >on this list more than once? And if you do, shouldn't YOU be the one >who has to scroll, since you have all that time to waste, anyway?
It isn't Bottom Posting or Top Posting that should really be done, it is Inline posting (which I gather from your reply is what you are thinking of anyway). Why? Because it follows natural thought and conversation progress. You quote the relevant section of the previous post(s) and reply along with them. Part of this also means trimming your replies to only include the relevant portions of previous emails (something you did very nicely). But let me ask you... does your own reply make sense when read as it is? You changed the subject, and then top posted a reply. So upon first reading, a person will look at yours and say "WTF is this guy talking about, where did this topic come from". Had you inline posted, that is, quoted the previous email and replied right below it, everyone would understand just fine even when jumping into the thread mid way (or in this case, starting your thread new since you changed the subject). You will often see the following during these arguments A: Because it is more confusing to read. Q: Why is top posting bad? There are two reasons people do top posting. 1: Because they want to preserve the ENTIRE thread up to that point. And when doing so, bottom posting quickly becomes too difficult to read (scroll past 14 previous emails in the thread), and inline posting becomes too difficult/messy to maintain. Top posting allows you to leave the entire previous thread in tact, something that is important to tech support or customer service, and sometimes other business emails, that might be dealing with 50 different issues each day, and can easily forget what the issue was with any given problem, or for other reasons need to preserve the entire thread. When you need to preserve the entire thread, then top posting is valid. I'd argue that it isn't in almost every other situation. And unless you need the entire thread, you shouldn't leave it all there, it is a waste of bandwidth. The other reason people do it, MS Outlook. It is configured to use top posting by default. And most users are too lazy/ignorant to alter whatever the default settings are (or aren't allowed to in the case of some large companies). Alas, I suspect because MS has long been forcing top posting on people, and I believe Apple does it with Mail as well, and with bandwidth starting to become plentiful, the Top Posting, Bottom Posting, Inline Posting arguments are going to start to become irrelevant. Whole threads are going to start being left in a message, and you will get 600k HTML laden emails downloaded 12 times so you can ready each person's one line response that quotes the entire previous message. Top Posting will become the (IMO annoying) norm, and netiquette rules, like all other rules of etiquette will adapt to the changing times and opinions of the masses. But hey, what do I know, I still use Claris Emailer. -chris <http://www.mythtech.net> -- The iMac List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | - Epson Stylus Color 580 Printers - new at $69 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> iMac List info: <http://lowendmac.com/imac/list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[email protected]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/imac-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
