FW: [LINK] Top posting is evil [was Re: vip-l: Electronic votiing]

[Daniel Rose]

The origin is outlook; used in rapid-fire short-response corp and govt
email settings, I'm expecting the email with the subject "top posting
question" and I know I asked "are you sure" because it was only 30
seconds ago that I sent the message, so I don't want to scroll down to
see the answer I'm already expecting.  Long discussions such as bottom
posters indulge in on lists are done in meetings or memos.

Personally I only think top possting is bad when email is to be read by
a wider audience, like, say, a mailing list.   Otherwise the reader must
scroll [and maybe struggle] to determine which sections where typed by
which contributor, or the sender must take time to re-compose the
message into a coherent whole.

Top posting with outlook leaves neat stamps at the beginning of each
person's authorship, and it's usually very clear who typed what.
Lastly, bottom posting by default will leave one's cursor below any
disclaimers or list stamps, and the author must navigate to the correct
insertion point.

Outlook goes:

while new_message loop {
 enter CTRL-R typetypetypesomemeaninglessdrivel CTRL-ENTER up arrow
}

so it's faster in a meaningless beaurocratic setting.  Not that I speak
from personal experience of course.


-----Original Message-----
From: link-bounces at anumail0.anu.edu.au
[mailto:link-bounces at anumail0.anu.edu.au] On Behalf Of Andy Farkas
Posted At: Thursday, 16 November 2006 15:47 PM
Posted To: Link List
Conversation: [LINK] Top posting is evil [was Re: vip-l: Electronic
votiing]
Subject: Re: [LINK] Top posting is evil [was Re: vip-l: Electronic
votiing]


Rick Welykochy wrote:
> Craig Sanders wrote:
>
> > ps: top-posting is evil.  replies go underneath quoted material, not
above it.
>
> Couldn't agree with you more. Someone's sig even demonstrates how 
> ridiculous tand disinformative top posting is.

The one that goes:

A: Yes.
>Q: Are you sure?
> >A: Because it rever4ses the logical flow of conversation.
> >>Q: Why is top posting frowned upon?

My question is: how many Linkers have read RFC 1855??

ps. <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1855>

-andyf
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