Well, normally i'd oblige and trim the fat out of my messages, I usually
do it in business communique, but in a public group like this, I like to
keep the entire conversation intact. One of the reasons I top post is
because I don't want to scroll down a buncha times to read responses...
such as your own John... just to make sense of this conversation. I'd
rather you get my opinion first and foremost than have to scroll down
through just to get the answer. It's just me though..
On 6/7/2010 2:05 PM, John R. Dennison wrote:
On Mon, Jun 07, 2010 at 10:47:40AM -0500, Chris McQuistion wrote:
Bottom-posting may be "correct" in some people's opinion, but look at
it this way. How do 99% of the email users in the US reply to emails?
Top posting.
Being in the majority by no means makes it "right". We in this
country have a long precedent of electing *bad* politicians for
multiple terms in office. Does this make that action "right"
since it requires a majority? No, of course it doesn't.
Top posting ruins the flow of the standard English written
language and makes following conversation topics awkward, at best.
A classic example of this is the following section:
A: Yes.
> Q: Are you sure?
> > A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation.
> > > Q: Why is top posting frowned upon?
> > > > A: Top-posting.
> > > > > Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
As you can see the above makes absolutely no sense whatsoever
and makes following the topic next to impossible. Why should I,
as a recipient of a message, be forced to mentally re-order that?
My time is valuable and forcing me to have top spend more than
necessary while reading a mail reply is inconsiderate.
And while *some* clients may have the ability of putting that back
together in the proper order they are by no means in the majority
and they are dependent upon proper headers being present which,
even in this day and age, is never a sure bet.
I really don't understand why this continues to even be discussed
when it is clearly plain to see that out-of-order quotes makes
deciphering mail replies a chore. I continue to believe that
people defending the use of top-posting are just defending
laziness; it's "easy" to top-post and it requires slightly
more effort to bottom-post. That is, quite honestly; the only
justification I can see in all this.
What you care to do in your personal / business e-mail
correspondence is entirely your choice; but to top-post in a
public forum such as a mailing list is nothing short of rude to
all members of that list. And speaking of lists: I am on well
over 100 different mailing lists; and in the *vast* majority
of those lists top-posting is officially frowned upon and in a
smaller majority it is strictly against the rules.
And now a personal request:
Is there any chance that you (and everyone else, not trying
to single you out here, Chris) might be able to spend the 20
additional seconds required to trim down your replies to include
only that which is pertinent to the discussion at hand? This is
yet another reason the top-posting is bad; excessive waste of
computing resources passing around and storing large amounts of
unneeded and untrimmed text. Thanks!
John
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