Re: top posting

[David Kastrup]

"Bertalan Fodor (LilyPondTool)" <address@hidden> writes:

>> Thanks for letting me know about this. I used be strongly against top
>> posting and was quite vocal about it.
>>   
> I usually read my email on a mobile connection using a 120x176 px
> mobile phone, and bottom posting means extra traffic and extra
> scrolling.

Wrong.  It means that only if people don't reduce the quoted context to
the parts required for establishing the context.  But we are not talking
about what kind of inappropriate behavior we like better.  The question
is what _appropriate_ behavior we want.

Unabridged posts remain available separately courtesy to your
newsreading software and cross-reference headers.  There is no need to
quote unabridged either top or bottom.

> For a longer discussion I usually don't care about history,

Nobody cares about that.  Instead, context is what is required.  As a
rule of thumb, write the majority of your postings yourself, and don't
let them consist primarily of stale and irrelevant history.

> only the latest events and thoughts, so for me please do top post. ;)

I have seen people top posting above daily digests.  Of course, if that
happens every day, not even a broadband connection will be able to keep
up after a few weeks.

The main rule is: don't post irrelevant quoted garbage.  Not at top, not
at bottom.

And if what you post is not garbage but judiciously picked context, the
logical reading order for a developing thought in context is top to
bottom.

-- 
David Kastrup