On 26-Apr-08, at 6:24 AM, Deepa Mohan wrote:
So...you techies...tell me....what IS so evil about this top posting
thing?
The context also matters, Deepa.
Top posting on a mailing list is bad, because it wastes bandwidth (a
lot of us spend time on near-dialup quality links over GPRS and CDMA)
and makes it harder to relate your message to the quoted text.
Top posting in one-on-one email, on the other hand, is GOOD because it
makes it easy to introduce a third person to the conversation without
having to explain context to them.
This is why most email clients encourage you to top-post. It is the
norm for most email users and often mandatory business practice, where
non-top posting tends to confuse users who expect email to build up in
reverse chronology.
Reverse chronology, notably, is also the norm for blogs. It's the sort
order we've come to expect from our information flows -- the most
recent, up-to-date bit is right up front, everything else is some
scrolling away. If you've just been introduced to the discussion, you
start at the latest and scroll back into the past until it starts
making sense.
Easy rule of thumb: top-post everywhere except on a mailing list that
houses cranky old timers.
