On 7 May 2008 at 8:42, Joseph wrote: ... > > Some like to drive on the left side of the road, some on the right. > > But in any specific environment, one way is preferred. For personal > > one-on-one email, top posting makes sense and I do it too. For mailing > > lists, it's bottom- or inline- posting. > > > > With all due respect, I would like to interject my humble opinion.... > > This is basically an English list. In English we read from left to > right. However, we also read from top to bottom. Therefore I would > think it's more appropriate to bottom post since it keep all the > comments in an order that's more correct. > > Do we read from left to right and top to bottom...
It all depends what the point is. I once wrote an MH-based email trouble-ticket system: it was all "top- posted", because the recipient could be assumed to know the history of the "thread", and to need to know most quickly the most recent events in fixing his problem - so these were at the head of the message. The remainder provided the full history, which was rarely needed. Similar reasoning makes me top-post personal messages, unless I'm answering point by point. For anyone who doesn't know the context, then appropriate context possibly is best presented concisely, as an introduction to and hence /followed/ by the new material - giving interspersed or bottom posting. Bottom posting /should/ encourage responsible snipping. I get very irritated by people who make me scroll down an enormous post, most of which I've seen before (several times) but which has to be scanned just in case there's new material interspersed -- and who then add "me too" at the bottom, or some like inanity. But always, clarity is most important - if the poster can't be bothered to think what will be clearest under the given circumstances (which may mean continuing to top-post in a thread where that's already been started) then the chances are less that his message will be worth bothering with. IMO, of course :-) -- Permission for this mail to be processed by any third party in connection with marketing or advertising purposes is hereby explicitly denied. http://www.scottsonline.org.uk lists incoming sites blocked because of spam [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mike Scott, Harlow, Essex, England --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
