Mikus, On Wednesday 13 October 2004 12:24, Mikus Grinbergs wrote:
On Wed, 13 Oct 2004 09:54:58 -0400 Jeffrey Laramie
wrote: Another thing people are complaining about is top posting. ...
Top posting is a religious issue. Since people are ready to explain why it is discouraged, let me mention where I find it appropriate:
First off, when a post contributes separate text for MULTIPLE items, it makes no sense to have the "answers" before the "questions". Here, comments __should__ follow the quotes from the previous post.
But what about a post that contributes only a single block of text? Published guidelines on posting seem to disregard the existence of the previous post - their instruction is to first read the quoted text, then read the contributed text. I find this bothersome - it forces me to "get past" the quoted text before I can find out what __THIS__ post has to say. It is this "scroll that message" that top posting (of a single block) frees me from having to go through.
Amen! Top posting is not evil. Posting style is a pragmatic issue, not a dogmatic one. What's right is what allows the writer to most effectively and efficiently communicate with the readers.
Why don't I *always* want to view that quote from the previous post? Because its text was typically posted today or yesterday, and I still remember what it said. Besides, the mail/news software I use keeps msgs (both read and unread) in sequence within threads -- so it is trivial for me to go back and read the whole previous post, if I wish.
Again, exactly right. Treating each post as if it should stand alone and allow someone who's picking up the thread in mid discussion using only a single posting is silly. In fact, there are some contradictory premises here. One says trim quotations. The anti-top-posting ideology says one should be able to read any given post from top to bottom and that out-of-order replies are hard to follow. If the latter point is valid, then trimming quoted content is contraindicated. Yet most people insist on both trimming and no top posting.
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mikus
Randall Schulz