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On Friday, September 14 at 09:40 AM, quoth Ben Gladwell:
>Maybe someone should explain to me what's so bad about top posting.
>Seems like a matter of preference to me.
To quote the jargon file:
The problem with this practice is neatly summed up by the following
FAQ entry:
> A: No.
> Q: Should I include quotations after my reply?
This term is generally used pejoratively with the implication that the
offending person is a newbie, a Microsoft addict (Microsoft mail tools
produce a similar format by default), or simply a
common-and-garden-variety idiot.
One major problem with top-posting is that people who do it all too
frequently quote the entire parent message rather than trimming it
down to those portions relevant to their reply — this makes threads
bulky and unnecessarily difficult to read and arouses the righteous
ire of experienced Internet residents (this style is called “TOFU” for
“text over, fullquote under”, or sometimes “jeopardy-style quoting”).
Another problem is that top-posters often word their replies on the
assumption that you just read the previous message, even though their
perversity has put it further down the page than you have yet read.
........
Another good reason which isn't mentioned in the jargon file is that
most mailing lists are archived and are intended as reference for
future folks trying to figure out the same problems. When they go
searching for answers, they want to be able to quickly glance at an
email to see if it addresses their problem. Thus, if the question
(i.e. the thing that might match their problem) is at the top, it
makes using the list archives as a reference that much easier. Imagine
if my answer here (which is probably longer than will fit onto a
single screen in many archives) only quoted your question at the
bottom. In order to figure out where I'm coming from in this answer,
the person has to either read my entire answer, or scroll to the
bottom to find the question, then scroll to the top to read the answer
(if they're interested).
When you're just talking to your friends, or sending a one-off email,
top posting is probably the fastest and easiest, because nobody need
to reference the previous thread.
Now imagine a set of long responses, one after the other, all
top-posted. Anyone attempting to read through that thread will have to
scroll to the bottom, scroll up to get the top of the first message,
scroll down as they read, scroll up a bit further to the top of the
next message, scroll down as they read, scroll up a bit further to get
to the top of the next message... When creating something to be used
as a reference, that's extremely annoying.
~Kyle
- --
What greater thing is there for human souls than to feel that they are
joined for life - to be with each other in silent unspeakable
memories.
-- George Eliot
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