Problem!

[Joe(theWordy)Philbrook]

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It would appear that on Sat Feb 4, C Hamel did say:

> Someone posts, and another top posts, and this top-posting
> continues.  Then, one needs to refer to prior posts so
> starts at the bottom & reads that one; then that person
> scrolls up two msgs & reads the next one (reading down, of
> course); then said person has to scroll up two, once more,
> and read the next reply.  Totally illogical, conventions
> notwithstanding.
> 
> The prior, vs starting at the top & just continuing all
> the way down, reading the posts in order.  This is not
> rocket science! :-)  One convention is illogical, the next
> is logical.  As a Windows --and before that DOS, b'cause
> Gates had yet to invent Windows 0.5 or 1-- user for years
> I was top posting because everyone else did, for whatever
> reason.  I thought that it was hard to follow then, and I
> think so now.  Then, comes Linux and I, too, had become so
> used to top posting that it took me awhile to get into the
> habit of doing the more logical thing and bottom post. 
> Then, one day, when I had to read several posts in one msg
> it finally clicked:  "THIS MORE IS LOGICAL," I said to
> myself.,  The rest is history. :-)

Please pardon me for jumping in here...

First, I have to say that I don't think a user requesting that other
posters conform to a usenet convention that is by and large accepted
as the standard on many(most?) linux-user-help mailing lists, should be
enough to cause another holy war on top posting.

Second, because I believe it will increase my chances of NOT alienating
those experts I seek help from I've accepted and regularly use the
bottom posting convention. That is unless the thread is already full of
top posts, or if I insert text right after the appropriate portion of the
multi point quote that I may be replying to more than one part of...

BUT I happen to really disagree with the logic you just stated. I was
actually a little put off by "Michael's" apparent anger until your post
just made his previous point,
{see Message-ID: <1139022074.10562.5.camel at localhost.localdomain>}
about people who: 
=> "go so far as to label anybody who chooses to do things
=> differently as," <snip> "illogical" <snip>

The only reason that it makes more since to bottom post is that it is
the expected convention... A much more important convention is to trim
the quoted text to the part you are replying to. There shouldn't be
a previous post before it, and  a more previous post before that etc...
all inside the one post to begin with.

Quoting should usually be sufficiently trimmed that top vs bottom and or
interleaved posting is a moot point. It makes more sense to say either:

<---->

Bill said:
> "something" 
But I say "something else"

<---->

 -OR-

<---->

I say "something else"
because Bill said:
> "Something"

<---->

And let those who don't remember why Bill said "something" go to Bill's
message to look it up. (this is easy if reading by threads...)

Than it ever will make sense to say:

<---->

Bill said:
> Steve Said:
> > Lisa said:
> > > Sam said
> > > > "whatever"
> > > "a thing"
> > "other thing"
> "something
"something else"
me

<---->

(I hate counting ">" to figure out who said what, don't you)

If you need to back up in the thread you could just look at the actual
previous post. If you or your chosen mail reader doesn't do threads, or
if you don't have the previous posts on file then that's what web based
archives are for.

Top posting would put the new material right at the top where you can
see it without having to scroll past all the old stuff again and again.
If *EVERYONE* top posted, all I'd have to do to see the thread in logical
sequence would be to: Read the 1st message, then just the new part of the
next, then just the new part of the next, etc... This would help me
quickly identify and skip over the ones that don't add anything more than
a "me to" to the thread...

That (to me) is much more logical than making me have to scroll to the
bottom of every single message I open just to see if the message is even
still on the topic that caused me to open it in the first place...

Which wouldn't be so bad if the quoting was confined to the part being
replied to. As it is, the sheer volume of the redundant quoting is such
that by the time I find out it's another "me to" reply, I've likely spent
so much time scrolling that I may start forgetting some of the thread and
have to back up again, or give up on it.

Still since bottom posting *IS* the accepted convention, I  mostly comply
with it. Not because I agree with it. But because I strive to work *WITH*
people instead of trying to make them agree with how I think it should
be done. But I doubt I'll ever agree that bottom posting is any more
logical than top posting. 

Joe

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-- 
|    ^^^   ^^^
|    <o>   <o>	     Joe (theWordy) Philbrook
|	 ^    		  J(tWdy)P
|	___	       <<jtwdyp at ttlc.net>>
|           
|      <sigh>