Hi Vince I agree with You! I'm not native english, so I just can't put my thought in writing as good as You can. I do feel pitty towards the top-posters, that gets flamed almost immediatly when they post their first question here. Some people top-post, some botton-post, others something in between. A simple thread is easy to read when top-posting, because one do remeber the previous posts, thus is able to follow it by reading only the answer in the new reply. But in more complex question, that has many points, requires something like posting almost line-by-line in order to answer the multitude of questions. I like to read top-posting, and there is no way I could learn to like bottom-posting more. But still if the thread is interesting, I do scroll down and search the beginning of the reply. By searching I mean that there is no fixed amount of lines from the previous post, thus it requires scrolling and searching for the first line without the quote-char in front. And even if there is just couple of line quoted in the beginning, the answer is not "right there" in the top. Earlier someone said, that in the message archive the lates is always on the bottom. This is true for the subject, and it should be like that with subjects and other similar places. But then when it comes to reading, while reading the following post, the answer should be on top, so that one should not need to scroll down searching for the reply. And if jumped directly to latest message with the solution, the question is at the bottom, and search is needed. But that is only because one jumped to the last message directly... I'm not sure if get my thought written so that people understand my meaning...? So there is not only one solution to everything. I have felt many times, that people who are defending bottom-posting, do require that no matter what. I do feel strongly against that attitude, but have been quiet about that for a long time. When I saw the newcomer leaving us saying that he won't tolerate being flamed after just one week on the list, I just had to open my mouth. I hope that the outcoming of this is that people do get more tolerant, and perhaps quide the newcomers more softly, letting them to get used to this list, and maybe even learn by themselves how to write and find their own way of writing clear messages. I agree that there has been posters that needs some advice (like writing without periods, all in one long sentense without any brakes or line-feeds), but do they need to be shot? Everyone has been a beginner. Also by giving a little space to newcomers, more questions will be answered, and bandwidth saved. Jaska.
For me, this actually exposes very neatly an underlying social metaphor behind the whole top vs bottom posting argument.
Essentially, there are those on this list who view it as a Country Club, who are insisting on imposing their rules on others and making out that it is unacceptable to top-post, that it is farting in an elevator, that it is passing the port the wrong way, that it is the route to social exclusion. In short, they are trying to exercise control over other people by insisting that the list belongs to the bottom posters.