OT: Speaking of "top posting"

I agree. I have a memory of greater than 30 seconds, I don't need to re-read the thread info EVERY time I look at the thread. And if I do need to see a history, it is easy to scroll down to see it. I find it much quicker to open and read, rather than open - scroll through 3 weeks of history - then read. I give one vote to top posting

There isn't a 'proper' method in short - RFC 1855 declines to address this.

However it states:

If you are sending a reply to a message or a posting be sure you summarize the original at the top of the message, or include just enough text of the original to give a context. This will make sure readers understand when they start to read your response. Since NetNews, especially, is proliferated by distributing the postings from one host to another, it is possible to see a response to a message before seeing the original. Giving context helps everyone. But do not include the entire original!

In other words, the important thing is not whether it is a top or a bottom post, it's whether it is a *short* quote. Common sense, however, says that if the thread starts off top posted, then it should be continued as such, and vice-versa ( I was guilty in not doing this as RJ pointed out).

Dave Milne, Scotland '91 Grand Wagoneer, '99 TJ

personally, I agree.

I've been raked a few times for top posting in other NG's too.

They explained to me that it's ettiquette to allow the scanning of the entire thread before getting to the lastest addition. I told them that etiquette should make them post more than a single sentence and requoting 10pages of the original text....

Personally, I keep all my messages...if I need the original post...I'll go find it!

I prefer top posts....less work for me!

Top Posting for me.

DMcMorris

I'm mostly a lurker here, but I'm firmly in the bottom-poster camp. If quoted text is properly edited (see above), it doesn't require scrolling by the reader. My computer is on all day, but I'm in and out of Usenet, doing other things. Whenever I finish reading a group, I mark all the messages "read" so that when I return later, only the new messages show up on my screen. Bottom-posting allows me to quickly pick up on where each thread's discussion was headed during my last visit. And since I frequent many other newsgroups during the day, most of which are bottom-posted, I don't want to be switching my style back and forth, or trying to remember which style goes with each group. There is a reason why standards are a Good Thing, even if they are unwritten standards.

Many of the "elders" who have been posting on Usenet for years are strong advocates of bottom-posting, and if it's good enough for the folks who got this whole thing started, it's plenty good enough for me. But then, I've always been kind of a stickler for tradition. That's a big reason why I drive a Jeep Wrangler, and why I won't ever be buying any of those new things with Benz-style headlights, etc.

Mike

I come from the BBS days and top posting was the way to go. I think the 'old timers' you are talking about were really just internet 'newbies' that jumped on the band wagon so they missed the pre internet days and made up their own way.

I think that is one reason there are two schools for the 'proper' way to do it.

Even take the commercial newsreaders like Netscape, they default to proper top posting, you have to muck around with settings to bottom post.

My $0.02,

Mike

Mike Albanese wrote:

The "proper" method is to do as the Regulars in that group do. Here in RAMJ+W the norm is to top-post. In other groups norm is to trim and bottom post. Rightly or wrongly both camps see it as a sign of respect for their respective groups, that you haven't just barged in off the street and demanded to know where the beer is.

During the funeral.

MACINTOSH will bottom post... by default too.

-- LE CLONE

BEER!!!! someone say BEER!!!.

Snow...

Usenet, with it's convention of interleaved bottom posting, was well established in universities and research facilities by the time BBSs became popular with home hobbyists in the early 80s. Bottom posting was the defacto Internet standard until PC users invaded en-masse with their nasty BBS top posting habits.

Steve

Mike Roma> I come from the BBS days and top posting was the way to go. I think the

The downside to top posting is people often fail to trim the crap off the bottom.

For someone reading messages one at a time it's not all that big a deal. But for someone reading them in an archive or digest it's a real pain in the ass.

It also gets difficult when folks start replying within the text of the message. It becomes really hard to follow the thread of participants when things get mixed up. Like someone quoting it as "From" a given person when it was more like just from that person's reply somewhere else in the thread.

For quick and simple replies that don't require addressing points individually I find it's OK to use top posting if you trim the end up a bit to cut down on the .sig and other garbage.

-Bill

LOL! Figures.

I guess it all depends on where one's background in computers is eh.

Lee Ayton has it right, follow the norm in the group or that thread. I try to post that way, if the whole thread is bottom I follow otherwise I top post here.

Mike

Steve wrote:

Not that my post below has anything to do with Jeeps, but...

Mike frequented different BBSi than I did. The FidoNet echos that I carried both as Node (1:320/455) (1:327/455) and mail Hub (1:327/400) uniformly used interleaved bottom posting. Since FidoNet was carried on the individual system operator's own personal long-distance dime there was considerable pressure to trim messages to only the relevant material.

I was thinking of groups like alt.sys.pdp10 or alt.folklore.computers where a good smattering of academics and industry old-timers hang out. People who worked on or around the technologies that would become the internet we have today. Not unusual to have notables such as Dennis Ritchie (Unix) drop by. They all seem to bottom-post.

Not sure with Netscape, but Mozilla (the code which eventually goes into Netscape) defaults to bottom-post. To me, it seemed that top-posting really took off with the advent of Outlook Express. There have been so many opinions on this over the years, that I guess you either subscribe to "When in Rome..." or "Death to ___-Posters!", depending on your personal level of zeal :-)

Mike

I've been on a plethora of different type boards for many years and the norm is usually:

1. Top post for a general reply. Most boards/programs default to top-posting as it creates a chronological sequence of posts from new to old. This is A LOT more convenient in the elder days when scrolling wasn't as easy as clicking a mouse button.

1. Only bottom post exclusively if replying to numerous bits of information, generally from multiplie posters being quoted, whereby it makes understanding your reply easier by following the previous posts in order. Again, lots of appropriate snipping is important.

2. Bottom posting is preferred only when used INCLUSIVE to a previous post. For example, scroll down a tad and I'll use an example within Mike's post.

And I guess now-a-days, as was said, do what everyone else is doing. So long as people snip accordingly, with the new point-and-click GUI's, it doesn't really matter in the end.

Example of inclusive bottom-posting.

Yes, I agree.

Mike Smells! ;p

All the reason to top post, lol.

Given a choice it is top posting for me for all the reasons stated in this thread. I will bottom post only if I know that I will be vilified if I don't. I consider interleaving a separate method (and I do not consider it to be a form of bottom posting) to be used when responding specifically to certain sentences. I really wish that top posting was the broad norm....

I really become annoyed at scrolling down through all the repetitive gook when I am reading a dozen posts all on the same topic. It gets my scroll finger achy too.

What I like is to click on a post, see what new is added, and then decide to reply or move on, just like that. Bam Bam Bam. Tomes

information,

It varies from group to group, and in my unsolicited opinion is similar to toilet paper rolls..... do they go over, or do they go under?

Whether you choose to top-post or bottom-post is not nearly so important as taking a few seconds to TRIM DOWN THE FREAKING QUOTE. Nobody wants to see several days' worth of quoted material in every post in a thread.