Re: Why top posting is considered wrong?
- From: Harlan Messinger <hmessinger.removethis@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 14:46:07 -0500
192.168.0.1 wrote:
It doesn't make a sense to me!
When you see the subject and you've read the first post, than if, you want to answer, my logic tells me, that instead a force users to scroll down and find (sometimes very far from the top!) these 3 words I was looking for, better put it on the top!
Following your logic a little further, if you're *assuming* that someone reading your post has already read the posts preceding it, then there isn't any reason to be quoting the preceding posts in your post, and you'd omit them altogether.
But the reason for including [relevant portions of] previous posts in yours is because a large part of the time people aren't following threads from start to finish in linear fashion. People come and go from newsgroups and may have downloaded your post after the earliest posts in the thread have already disappeared from their news server. Or they may have come across your post in a search, and haven't read all the preceding posts.
So there's a good reason to included relevant preceding material in your own posts for the sake of providing context without forcing the user to find earlier posts that may not even be available any more. OK, now that we've established that people may be deriving the context for your comments entirely from the material you're quoting from earlier messages, don't you think it's easier for them to get that context if they can read the material in a sensible order?
The key is:
1. Trim earlier material not necessary for understanding the context behind your response.
2. If placing your entire response after the quoted material would leave it clear which part of the quoted material each of your points relates to, then place it at the end.
3. Otherwise, place each of your points after the preceding material to which it responds.
[snip]
When I see a someone posting an answer on the top, what a relief.
Don't have to scroll down!
Oh, yeah, what an arduous burden scrolling is! Sometimes I scroll so much I have to take a nap afterwards.
Easier and faster, especially, when the previous message is long and whole, which is wrong as well IMHO.
If you are going to assume that the user isn't going to read all that text, then why are you wasting space including it? Leave it out. That's another problem with Usenet responses--people who don't trim previous posts, polluting every message with the entirety of the thread, taking up space, and obscuring the message.
When I see someone top posting, I do appreciate because I know, that under his (her) post is nothing I didn't read before. When someone is answering on certain elements of the post, that's entire different story.
In addition to what I said above, you're not thinking ahead. You're ignoring what happens when other people respond to you, and other people respond to them. What if *they* are answering certain elements of your posts and subsequent ones? In that case, *they* will place their responses after the relevant portions. So your contribution is above the preceding material, and their contributions are below the material to which they relate. The result is a post that isn't in any order at all.
I think I will top post regardless opinions of others because... I like that way!
Are you posting for your own comprehension or for the comprehension of others?
.
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- From: 192.168.0.1
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