Re: Well, they went and did it.

Tim, I'm very sure that top posting is far more common than bottom posting in nearly all situations and in nearly all forums for the reason I stated. That is, to save effort in paging down. In fact, I know of no group but this one where some people use bottom posting. People want to maintain the continuity of a thread so that the latest post is all that is needed to get the entire conversation on a particular branch. That being the case, it would be considered extremely impolite to delete content from the thread. If content is to be preserved, replies get long. If replies get long, people are inconvenienced by being forced to page to the bottom. No one in a corporate environment would ever care how long an email got. CYA is paramount, and content must be preserved if one is to prove later on how a situation or email exchange really unfolded. I am a corporate whore, so I have adopted the corporate paradigm. It makes sense, besides, so all logical people would naturally do the same.

The only people who care about long posts or who insist on text posts rather than HTML posts are those who access old-style internet forums from a dialup modem. That is the past. Ancient history. Those people can suffer with long downloads, as far as I am concerned. I have no mercy, and no regard for them. There are text message listserver groups that were started in the early 1990's for such stick-in-the-mud people who are hopelessly mired in ancient technology, or who refuse to get with the program and come into the modern world. This is the information age, Tim. Overload is the norm, not the exception.

Top posting makes more sense in the corporate environment where people routinely deal with 80 to 150 or more interdepartmental emails per day. I am a VP at my company. I have to deal easily with 150 emails per day at work. Furthermore, in large corporate environments where CYA comes into play, you need to preserve all previous comments so you can prove at later dates that you notified the right parties at the right time and they were the ones who dropped the ball, and not you. Why, some emails get so long, that MS Outlook (the corporate standard email system) has to indent the very earliest posts so much that all words are broken into single letters streamed top to bottom in unreadably long comet trail lines. It can be fascinating to read, you know.

Bottom posting is stupid. If I cared to spend the effort, I'd write a little macro to rearrange all posts to the standard method of top posting. It is the standard method, and the logical one, you know, and if you think differently, you're just wrong. Oh well. But I don't want to waste my time. I can sort out a post very easily regardless of whether multiple respondents to the thread post on the top or on the bottom.

OK, I admit I'm over the top and I'm exaggerating a little. But your attitude really annoyed me. What attitude, you say? It's the officious and pompous presumption that top posting must be "corrected", and the fact that you don't just do it because it suits you, you do it and feel it necessary to rub it in the logical top-poster's face. Why? Are you a pedagogue? Are you so sure that you are "right", and have the right to dictate to others how they should post on a forum? Yeah, what really gets to me is your attitude. *** top posting corrected *** you say, as though it were an error, an error mind you, and not a matter of preference. Get real and get a life. I have decided that I will always top post, because that is what I like. "Correct" if you will. It's your wasted effort, not mine.

"corrected"  - screw that.  Get the stick out of your ass.

Skip.



Briarroot wrote:
Skip wrote: 
*** is top-posting frowned upon? ***
*** CONTINUED AT BOTTOM ***

I prefer top-posting to bottom posting as I don't have to page down past the quoted part to see the new response. To each his own, I suppose, but if it is an agreed upon convention for this forum, I'll see if I can accommodate it. Is it? 


Answer:  Because it disturbs the logical flow of a message.
Query:  Why is top posting a sloppy form of writing?

If posters would simply observe the time-honored convention of *editing* their quotes to include only that portion of the original message(s) to which they wish to respond, you wouldn't have to exercise your PageDown key so much. (Hint!)

http://members.fortunecity.com/nnqweb/nquote.html


I hear what you are saying Tim, but since this isn't a political forum, we might bore others with a long political discussion, or perhaps even sow discord. I do not like discord when I am seeking camaraderie, but I love discussing politics too. Some consider my views extreme, and it's hard sometimes for me to keep my mouth shut. I don't disagree with you greatly, by the way, but if you have a preferred political forum and want to discuss it some more, I'd enjoy it too. Point the way.

The politics surrounding the anti-tobacco movement are always On Topic here. Extreme views (or not) are fine. ;-)

Regards,

Tim Parker ... Germain's Medium Flake in a Savinelli pot 
.

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