Problem!

[Tristan Wibberley]

Michael T. Richter wrote:
> On Sat, 2006-04-02 at 12:50 +0200, Ari Torhamo wrote:
>> It's been about being clever too and accepting things that work better.
> 
> I'll accept that when I see pure, rigorous, logical proof--untainted by
> obvious elevation of personal preference to specious "fact"--which
> demonstrates conclusively that bottom-posting "works better" than
> top-posting.  (Hint: this is not possible.)

True, it is not possible to prove that, but it is also not possible to 
prove that you exist, so I don't see how your argument is relevant. 
However, when in the company of other people, human social intercourse 
dictates that one follows the etiquette of the group and situation. 
Common netiquette asks that people bottom post and snip unanswered parts 
of the discussion, so that, while a message may contain many many 
questions, responses and responses of responses are of the form:

 >> Question 1
 > Answer 1
Response 1

 >> Question 2
 > Answer 2
Response 2

 >> Question 3
 > Answer 3
Response 3

as if each question was originally in its own post, rather than:

Response 1
Response 2
Response 3

 > Answer 1
 > Answer 2
 > Answer 3

 >> Question 1
 >> Question 2
 >> Question 3

This symmetry between multiple questions in a post, and multiple 
questions each in separate posts, shows that bottom posting is almost 
equivalent to organising questions in their own threads, and sorting by 
thread, but with the additional connection of being in just one thread. 
Top posting, however, is almost equivalent to sorting by date, but with 
the references to the parent posts automatically brought in to the display.

In a one-to-one conversation, top posting is probably the most useful. 
In an archived discussion group, however, date is mostly unimportant. I 
would say, regardless of preference, bottom posting is almost always 
best for an archived mailing list (if it is an English list). This is 
because the new reader will need to read the history, which is naturally 
done top to bottom.

I think the most important principle is that a group uses one convention 
so that a reader can expect the same form in any chosen mail and thus 
use the group efficiently. If that is top-posting, it doesn't matter too 
much, since you will get into a mode where you can rapidly read through 
the hundreds of lines of history to find what it is that is being 
replied to at the top of the message.

-- 
Tristan Wibberley