🚀 go-pugleaf

Frank F. Matthews (matthews942@comcast.net) wrote:
: ...if you look rationally top posting make good sense.  The major 
: advantages are two fold.  First, it locates the new information at the 
: beginning of the message while retaining the message stream in a single 
: document.  

***   You have forgotten the following points:

1/ Posts don't always arrive in order from all servers to all other
servers.

2/ In a thread with multiple subjects and multiple posters, one must
scroll down to see to what the comment refers. If the quotes are not
trimmed, one can not always be sure to which point the top-posted
comments belong.

3/ If multiple comments are posted, readers must scroll down and them back
up again to match the points with the comments.

4/ In threads where some comments are top posted and others not, the
message stream is jumbled and that makes the above two points even
more valid.

5/ For readers that read multiple groups, they do not necessarily follow a
thread right through because they are off on other groups for a time. So
they must refer to the message stream and if it's jumbled, they cannot
easily reconstruct it.

6/ For readers that visit infrequently, some messages may have dropped
off the server, so it's important to give an in-order message stream. It's
also needed so that the reader may get back up to speed on what was said,
and finally to the comments of the last poster that can be placed into
the context. This is opposed to seeing those comments and then having to
scroll down to assimilate them with the thoughts of the others posting.

7/ In threads that deal with programming or instructions, it's important
for that to all be in order.

8/ Top Posting invariably means that in long threads, the quoted text is
repeated time and time again, clogging the newsgroup server with
redundant information and lowering retention time.


: To me though another significant advantage is that it 
: connects the identification of the person posting with the post in a 
: convenient manner.  

***   This is why people should use signatures so that their names will be
associated with the text immediately above it.


: For example:

: with top posting.

: Name 3
: message 3

: name 2
: message 2

: name 1 message 1

: with bottom posting

: name 3

: name 2

:  > name 1

:  >> message 1

:  >message 2

: message 3

***   Actually, it's

name 1

> name 2

>> name 3

message 1

> message 2

>> message 3

   ...at least in my newsreader.


: The first format makes much more sense.  If it were not for the 
: irrational rants of the fashion police I would use it fairly 
: consistently.  

***   That's *newsgroup police*.  (-:

   The problem is that with top posting, the text does not flow in a
conversational manner.


: Alas the Neanderthals around get off into a major fit so 
: I use the bad format for the most part.  Unless a rational poster is the 
: one I am responding to.

***   I am a rational poster, so conversation is important and logical.


: As a real dinosaur I have no idea why the Neanderthals get their 
: knickers in such a twit but they do.

***   It's because top posting is a nuisance to read because it causes so 
much back & forth scrolling and work on the reader's part to match the
comment with the quoted text.


: I agree that middle posting sometimes makes sense in the situation you note.

***   Such as this. I prefer to call it "interspersed posting", by the
way. Middle posting causes readers to scroll down past all the stuff after
the middle comment looking for more comments which don't exist.



: As far as trimming of posts is concerned given the identifications I 
: mention it is usually done so badly that unless line prefixes are 
: carefully counted individuals often appear to have said something that 
: is actually the responsibility of another.  

***    That is indeed sometimes the case, but as you say, it is done so
badly, that it is also a nuisance to the reader.


: Or it trims so much that you 
: have no idea what the message is a response to without a long search 
: thru the message tree.

***   Yup. I hate that too.

Richard

PS: Thanks for bottom posting, Frank,  (-:

R.