Hi I do disagree with You. Top-posting is not a bad thing, no matter what You say. If You can't remember, what the previous message was about when following the thread, You are welcome to start reading every message from the bottom up. But for me, if I see a long quote in the beginning, and few lines of answer at the bottom, I'm not ready to read it unless it is really interesting. Even worse is replying here and there without paying too much attention how to make it clear where the reply is, and where the original is. This is not really neccssary when people usually have only 1-2 questions. When reading a top-post, if the answer seems to be interesting, and the thread is new to me, then I will read the rest once to get the idea of the thread. By doing so, I do save a lot of time and effort. If everyone should start mid- and end-posting, reading these e-mails would be horrible and time consuming. Even this post, when someone first reads Your post, then reads this reply, do not need to scroll down and try to find my reply. They will remember the previous in the thread (the message I'm replying now), so why indeed they should be bothered to scroll again and again the same text... The main thing to me, is the ease of reading.. and it really can't be that wrong! Jaska. On Thursday 17 October 2002 11:20, you wrote:
On Thursday 17 October 2002 06:27, jaakko tamminen wrote:
(hmmm, I think a lot of the rancour has gone out of this thread, so I'll venture a few opinions.)
In some cases I agree with You.. Like Your answers for this long letter should be in-line answers.
If they're short, then they should be entirely below any trimmed text. The whole point of any trimmed text is to give you (the reader) a quick primer on what the subject is about. Unless you're writing in a Semitic or Oriental language, you read left-right and top-bottom - so the primer should be *above* the new tex, not below it.
To do anything else assumes that a) the reader reads anything from the bottom of the page up or that b) they're precognitive, and know exactly what you were talking about before you tell them
As such, top-posting is simply *wrong*. People who top post are a menace to life on this planet and should be eradicated immediately for the public good.
Not really. It's not exactly up there with the great all-time sins; it's a very minor faux pas, truth be told. However, it is wrong; it is (strictly speaking) incorrect usage of standard English formatting.
With long letter it is a good idea to answer by question as You did.
If it's a massive article, then a point-by-point response is the correct way to go; that's been the tradition ever since the Socratic dialogues were written down 2400 years ago.
But with a single question a top-post is the way to go.
If I follow a thread with a single question, I can then very easy see how the problem solving is progressing by just reading the top-post and clicking on the subject line. No need for scrolling.
Which does assume that you haven't missed any articles in the thread, or that you can remember all of the previous stuff perfectly. If you *can't*, then you may derive a meaning out of context, or miss a point made below, or suffer similar mishaps.
If it's not important enough to be used to prime peoples' memory on the subject to date, then it simply shouldn't be there; it's superfluous to the discussion, and should be trimmed.
As son-of-1036 says:
" Posters SHOULD edit quoted context to trim it down to the minimum necessary."
(Yes, son-of-1036 specifically applies to Usenet, but it is built on the conventions of standard English usage.)
Similarly, RFC 1855 (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt) says:
"If you are sending a reply to a message or a posting be sure you summarize the original at the top of the message, or include just enough text of the original to give a context."
Again, it's advice, not a command; but it is based on standard accepted practice.
As this answer is a "general" reply, it does not neet to be answered line-by-line, top post is better here... People who has followed this thread knows what it's all about... if not, they can then scroll down.
I've answered point-by-point, since I usually answer that way, even on fairly short messages; but if I were replying to a single short message, I'd trim out anything I didn't need and reply below the previous text.
I don't think top-posting is a massive life-threatening crime, though! I, for one, am not going to start getting in a massive snit about it, as there are any number of better things to worry about.
Gideon.