Re: Posting

From: willjay (willjay_at_excite.com)
Date: 10/25/03 

Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 10:04:35 -0400

As long as the thread stays on topic and doesn't skew into a tangent as most
of the posts do here.. I believe that top-post with a stay on topic attitude
would be much more preferable than bottom-post as "because it is tradition
and it's our playground so you get lost" attitude.

While you can find many who are in favor of bottom-posts, there are just as
many who don't.

wj

"Charlie Gibbs" <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote in message
news:1888.426T2484T10055681@kltpzyxm.invalid...
> In article <KxXlb.47147$5n.13898@bignews5.bellsouth.net>
> willjay@excite.com (willjay) writes:
>
> >Am I out of line to ask that responses to posting contain original
> >posting replied-to messages affixed to the end of the reply instead
> >of the top of the reply. It is really annoying to have to scroll
> >down thru the original post. Anyone else annoyed by this. wj
>
> Top-posting is generally regarded as evil because it disrupts the
> normal sequence of a thread. The proper procedure is to quote
> just enough of the original message to establish context (which
> can be important if you're new to a thread or haven't read it
> for a while), then follow it up with your reply. If there are
> several points you can intersperse your responses with the original
> text.
>
> Many people try to justify top-posting by saying that it avoids
> making readers scroll through the entire original message.
> But that wouldn't be an issue if the original text was properly
> trimmed; it's just another attempt to argue that two wrongs make
> a right. Trying to justify not trimming quoted text on the basis
> of laziness won't fly either - if you're not willing to take the
> time to compose a message that's easy to read, why should others
> take the time to decipher it? (I don't - I read too much news
> to waste my time unscrambling poorly-formatted postings.)
>
> Perhaps the most succinct argument against top-posting appeared
> in a recent .sig from david bonde <i97_bedREMOVETHIS@i.kth.se>:
>
> A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
> Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
> A: Top-posting.
> Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?
>
> --
> /~\ cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
> \ / I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
> X Top-posted messages will probably be ignored. See RFC1855.
> / \ HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored. Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!
>

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