References Re: [Wylug-discuss] List Etiquette: Top Posting vs. Bottom Posting

[Roger Beaumont]

Dave Fisher wrote:
> Sorry for repying to my own post, but I thought it might help those who
> haven't encountered this debate before, if I posted a couple of
> references:
>   Wikipedia on Posting Style: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-posting
<snip>
> I'd particularly draw attention to this observation in the Wikipedia
> piece:
>   "Top-posting is viewed as seriously destructive to mailing-list
>   digests, where multiple levels of top-posting are difficult to skip.
>   The worst case would be top-posting while including an entire digest
>   as the original message"

Sorry to be a dissenting voice, but in context, I took the most significant 
element of that paragraph as the word "entire", especially as "entire 
digest" - I inferred that the real sin (according to that article) was not 
removing redundant material, which would, I guess, be available elsewhere 
in the digest.

As I read it (maybe because it fits my own personal preference) the overall 
tenor was that top-posting and inline-posting were good practice these 
days, as illustrated by:
-----------------------------------
Some believe that "top-posting" is appropriate for interpersonal e-mail, 
but inline posting should always be applied to threaded discussions such as 
newsgroups. Objections to top-posting on newsgroups, as a rule, seem to 
come from persons who first went online in the earlier days of Usenet, and 
in communities that date to Usenet's early days.  ...  Newer online 
participants, especially those with limited experience of Usenet, tend to 
be less sensitive to arguments about posting style.

It may be that users used to older, terminal-oriented software which was 
unable to easily show references to posts being replied to, learned to 
prefer the summary that not top-posting gives; it is also likely that the 
general slower propagation times of the original Usenet groups made that 
summary a useful reminder of older posts. As news and mail readers have 
become more capable, and as propagation times have grown shorter, newer 
users may find top-posting more efficient.
-----------------------------------

Basically, I prefer to see some new material without much (ideally any) 
scrolling, since, if a thread interests me, I've normally read the previous 
posts: top-posting good, inline-posting (as I'd class this post of mine) 
often better, but always remove redundant material unless it's going to a 
new participant.

Roger

PS  I'm not trying to denigrate or argue for change in list policy, just to 
explain my own preference.

R