You may be right. But in order to illustrate a point I send this reply. The point may not become obvious for a while - but I am hoping to get to it.
shiv On Saturday 12 Sep 2009 6:37:59 am Deepa Mohan wrote: > On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 10:18 PM, ss <[email protected]> wrote: > > Thanks for giving me the opportunity to say what I was going to say > > anyway even if the opportunity did not present itself. > > > > Top posting is not poor etiquette. Farting loudly in public or picking > > your nose and wiping snot on the tablecloth is poor etiquette. > > > > The problem with top posting is lack of clarity. This is a list (like > > many others) where there are multiple parallel conversations. Having to > > scroll down a page to figure out what was said earlier in order to invite > > the response you see at the top of the page leads to this lack of clarity > > - often > > for a third person who has not directly been taking part in a particular > > exchange. > > > > Of course most countries don't legislate against farting in public or > > wiping > > snot on the table cloth. But other than the idiocy of Blackberries that > > form > > less than 0.001 percent of email sending machines leading to arrogant > > laziness in top posting - it is such a pain to read top posted emails > > that there can be almost no excuse for not being able to avoid top > > posting. > > > > Just my view. > > I understand all of the above. But I also frequently hear many people > saying that top-posting is an obsolete practice "which only your silklist > friends follow" as most people look for a response on top, at the beginning > of your email to them and (at least in one famous instance) assume that you > have sent back their mail with no reply at all...until they look below > their...ummm...post. > > I find that the best thing is to just keep the parts of the message that > you want to retain for reference, delete the rest, and type your responses > after each part that you want to comment on. > > I personally had no problem deciphering "top-posted" messages until I got > on to this list, and U-know-who kept telling me that TP was a BT (Bad > Thing) ..for all the reasons mentioned above. And to dispute the point that > someone made by writing right-to-left and bottom-to-top, yes, that was a > bad practice to follow in English. But if it had been Arabic, the > right-to-left would have made sense, and the left-to-right would not have. > > So...*I* think that top- or bottom- posting is just a matter of what one is > used to, like driving on the left or right sides of a road. On the > silklist, I am careful not to top post, but am not particular about it > elsewhere...especially after that "why can't you respond at the top of your > mail to me?" query. It's just that bottom-posting (is there such a phrase?) > is the convention on this list...so I conform, like a Good Person. > > I now await the flood of mails that will tell me how wrong I am! > > Cheers, Deepa.
