Re: signature at the beginning, not the end

[Kyle Wheeler <kyle-mutt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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On Friday, September 14 at 09:40 AM, quoth Ben Gladwell:
>Maybe someone should explain to me what's so bad about top posting.
>Seems like a matter of preference to me.

To quote the jargon file:

The problem with this practice is neatly summed up by the following 
FAQ entry:

> A: No.
> Q: Should I include quotations after my reply?

This term is generally used pejoratively with the implication that the 
offending person is a newbie, a Microsoft addict (Microsoft mail tools 
produce a similar format by default), or simply a 
common-and-garden-variety idiot.

One major problem with top-posting is that people who do it all too 
frequently quote the entire parent message rather than trimming it 
down to those portions relevant to their reply — this makes threads 
bulky and unnecessarily difficult to read and arouses the righteous 
ire of experienced Internet residents (this style is called “TOFU” for 
“text over, fullquote under”, or sometimes “jeopardy-style quoting”). 
Another problem is that top-posters often word their replies on the 
assumption that you just read the previous message, even though their 
perversity has put it further down the page than you have yet read.

........

Another good reason which isn't mentioned in the jargon file is that 
most mailing lists are archived and are intended as reference for 
future folks trying to figure out the same problems. When they go 
searching for answers, they want to be able to quickly glance at an 
email to see if it addresses their problem. Thus, if the question 
(i.e. the thing that might match their problem) is at the top, it 
makes using the list archives as a reference that much easier. Imagine 
if my answer here (which is probably longer than will fit onto a 
single screen in many archives) only quoted your question at the 
bottom. In order to figure out where I'm coming from in this answer, 
the person has to either read my entire answer, or scroll to the 
bottom to find the question, then scroll to the top to read the answer 
(if they're interested).

When you're just talking to your friends, or sending a one-off email, 
top posting is probably the fastest and easiest, because nobody need 
to reference the previous thread.

Now imagine a set of long responses, one after the other, all 
top-posted. Anyone attempting to read through that thread will have to 
scroll to the bottom, scroll up to get the top of the first message, 
scroll down as they read, scroll up a bit further to the top of the 
next message, scroll down as they read, scroll up a bit further to get 
to the top of the next message... When creating something to be used 
as a reference, that's extremely annoying.

~Kyle
- -- 
What greater thing is there for human souls than to feel that they are 
joined for life - to be with each other in silent unspeakable 
memories.
                                                       -- George Eliot
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