[sclug] top posting

[Neil Haughton]

Hear hear! (That's the top posting version)

>
> The reason Microsoft and commercial email clients top post is that 
> usability studies show this is how people like it.  No-one will buy 
> something they don't like.  The interesting question is why a standard 
> was set without doing a usability study first.
>
> Darren Davison wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 2005-05-03 at 21:41 +0100, Hamlesh Motah wrote:
>>
>>> I must not be understanding, if its
>>> such a bad practise why hasn't it formed a greater more weightier part
>>> of the business community email etiquette
>>
Hear hear! (That's the bottom posting version)

It appears that top posting is the de-facto standard, and that those of 
the UseNet Police who seek to impose their ideas on the majority have 
been roundly defeated. ;-)

 >>No-one will buy something they don't like.

Interesting point (is this middle-posting now?) - do the writers of  
free software believe they don't need to take this into account in their 
own work?

Personally I think top- or bottom- posting is crass - When we still 
spoke English and wrote words on paper and stuff, we would refer by 
precis to the points to which we were replying.  None of this lazy, 
cumbersome and incomprehensible 'threading' stuff. eg,

"Dear John,
  You wrote that the Earth is flat. My own observations lead me to 
conclude that in fact the edges are curling, and   unless remedial steps 
are taken it will one day be round" etc etc.

This approach is still in use in letters printed in the Times (to which 
one of the correspondents referred) and other lesser papers, where you 
see no top- or bottom- posting of any kind. Miraculously, readers of the 
Times appear to be able to keep up, in spite of this omission.

Less is more, is it not?

Regards,

Neil Haughton