Well, I have seen some very rude posts to inexperienced users who top
posted, despite the fact that you "call BS" on the assertion. (That's a
very colorful and amusing phrase.)
And you do make quite an eloquent case that your preference should be
the rule, on the basis of history. There are good, valid reasons for
both methods, though, so forgive me if I don't agree with your conclusion.
As I have stated in other posts, I try to consider first the person to
whom I'm replying. Others are welcome to read if they like. I care not
a fig for the preferences of an e-list environment, only for the people.
I haven't suggested that top posting saves me any effort. It's really
trivial considered beside the effort that should go into composing a reply.
If you find reading posts in backwards order an annoying time-waster,
try starting at the bottom and reading them in that order. You are
eventually going to have to scroll all the way to the bottom to read a
bottom posted reply anyway. Chances are you'll find that you neither
need nor want to read them all. Probably you'll read only one or two,
which will be conveniently located near the top.
bg wrote:
(snip)
However, I have seen inexperienced posters berated for top posting by others
who want
to impose their own preferences as rules.
bg:
That is false. I call BS on it, in the strongest possible terms. It has
little to do with "their own preferences", and a lot to do with the
original ethos of the Net around multi-poster groups of all sorts.
What it stems from is the "one affects many" philosophy, which is
essential to keep in our minds when using an e-list. When someone
causes potentially hundreds of people to have to exert a little
more effort, just to save the one poster a little effort, that
is considered rude. Top-posting, in a group environment, usually
brings about that result - which is why people will object to it -
not because it violates "their own preferences".
In other words, Bruce, there are good, valid, Net-historical reasons
why an e-list environment will tend to prefer snipping/bottom-posting.
It's not about people's individual preferences.
Except maybe to the extent that many of us find reading threads
in backwards chronological sequence is an annoying time-waster :-)
Brewster Gillett
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