🚀 go-pugleaf

For the most part your points either have little connection to the 
posting location or appear to recommend top posting.

Richard Bonner wrote:

> ***   You have forgotten the following points:

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

No apparent connection.

> 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.

Perhaps.  However the comment usually refers to the last post which is 
immediately below the comment

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

If you are replying to multiple points then neither top or bottom 
posting makes sense.

> 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.

Consistency is useful.  Consistent top posting is better than consistent 
bottom posting as I noted.

> 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.

And the connection is?

> 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.

A comment on trimming not on posting location.

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

If you are posting sequential information you are unlikely to be doing 
that in multiple posts.

> 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.

Actually, top posting makes reasonable trimming easier and thus more likely.

 > 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.
 >

> : 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.