[sclug] top posting

[AlanCocks]

Neil Haughton wrote:

>  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. ;-)

[...]

>
>  Less is more, is it not?
>  Regards,>
>  Neil Haughton

Personal email exchanges, and this includes many business mail 
exchanges, are rather different from email lists or discussion groups. 
An email client will surely distinguish between day to day email and 
newsgroup or discussion group use? The latter tends to be a news client app.

Personal mail is usually between a very small number of readers (two?) 
who each are intimately aware of the background and current context of 
any mail. So top posting is common. The preceeding context is known well 
and will almost never need reading again.

In a business context, it can be useful to have a convenient record of 
the total exchange to date. However, each person is intimately aware of 
the preceeding context, it is not usually necessary to read any of it 
again. It's just there for reference in emergency. So in some 
professional areas I found it common to keep a very long bunch of 
preceeding emails lower down, and used top posting. In my own business 
experience (construction, water industry) it was rare that in line 
comments were useful or relevant, and bottom posting would have been 
silly and a waste of time.

In personal mail I use top posting fairly frequently. It depends on the 
experience (in using email) I think the recipient has got, and also the 
complexity of my reply, and the preceeding context. It depends on 
circumstances. Personal mail also does not often need a logical threaded 
format. Personal relationships are - well, personal, and one of the 
useful skills is to get along happily and without conflict if practicable.

In an email _sequence_ a mixture of top posting, in line comments, and 
bottom posting can become very confusing to the reader as the sequence 
progresses.

Typically for a discussion group in a specialist subject, points made 
may be complex, and inline comments are likely. Also follow-up repsonses 
to point/s are likely. A mixture of  inline comments (bottom posted 
intuitively) and top posting, and bottom posting.......is confusing.

Just as Eskimos are fabled to use 200 (?) different words for 'snow', it 
is usually easy with experience to decide when top or bottom posting is 
most readily useful and accepted.

I suspect I would soon tire of replying to top posted sequences in a 
group setting, it is not well suited to discussion groups. I don't look 
at every posting, I graze the list/s and react to occasional interests 
and time available. So bottom posting in a sequence is very useful and 
informative when visiting a message which is low down in a thread 
sequence. Top or mixed posting messages would be avoided by me, at 
least. I would prefer to use effort in commenting on a point rather than 
trying to ascertain what the point is!

To avoid the possible offence sometimes taken (not usually intended) 
when the subject arises, groups often have a stated convention.
-- 
alan cocks