On Thu, 2005-12-29 at 21:31, ETM wrote: > I don't recall such guidelines though I am aware > that people outside the US prefer bottom and > intersticed posting. I do not because I don't > like to drag through old material to get to the > current post. > > Elaine
Trust me - among experienced netters, and in a list environment, it is very much preferred in the US as well. The reason you feel you're having to "drag through old material" is that many people are too lazy, even when they do properly reply *after* the post to which they're replying, to go to the minor trouble to edit out the irrelevant portions of that and former posts. They simply leave it all intact, (as most top-posters customarily do) which is just as frowned on as top-posting itself. So what's different about having to "drag through old material" at the top, versus having to do it at the bottom, which we frequently have to do when the answer does not immediately reveal the relevant points of the original question? Either way we often find ourselves dragging through previous verbiage. I don't find that to be a big problem, unless it comes out of sequence, as it does when the clueless top-post. Keep in mind that this is a factor that is closely related to the nature of e-lists, where there may be a large volume of postings, and a responder should *not* assume that everyone reading her reply will have the contents of the post to which she is replying completely memorized. This also relates back to one of the very basic ethos pieces of the Net, which suggests that each time we post to a list, where hundreds or thousands may read it, we remain mindful of *how* we are doing it, in such a way as to minimize any requirements for extra effort on the part of the multiple recipients - in other words, it was thought polite to invest 20 seconds of your personal time in judicious editing and logical, chronological thread arrangements, in order to knock a few seconds off the time of each of perhaps hundreds of readers. And *especially* off the time of potential responders, who have the most time to lose WRT replying to a top-posted, out-of-sequence mess. This seems to me to be such a basic and easily grasped article of polite interpersonal communication that I marvel that so many people seem to either not understand it, or for some obscure reason, resent it. It is yet another example of the clear divide between early adopters of the Net and the recent arrivals. "The barbarians are at the gate, Jed - what shall we do?" "Tell 'em to stop that danged top-posting, Maude, and learn how to use their dad-ratted email editors!" We don't live our lives in reverse chronological sequence (unless we're using some very strange drugs<G>) so why should we be obliged to read an email thread that way? Brewster -- ****************************************************************** W. Brewster Gillett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Portland, OR USA ****************************************************************** --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
