[X-Newbies] Top posing in mail?

[Tony Johansen]

What started as an amusing and tongue in cheek thread this morning has
become a forum for the fatuous it would appear, such as those who very
rudely call others inconsiderate.

There are valid arguments both ways. For me the mail opens at the top, and
there I like to see the message I am receiving, and I see previous posts in
the form of footnotes to refer to if necessary.

But really, this is a storm in a tea cup. It matters little whether top or
bottom is used just so long as it is consistent. So long as most of my mail
is top posted I'm happy to stick with that.

If Mr Genet's passions went into advocating universal standards we would all
be better off and have more time to see the humour in simple things.

Tony Johansen,
President, Transmanian Vampire and Bottom Poster Spotting Society.


On 19/5/2005 9:36 PM, "B.ru c-e €K1u-tch-k0" <AppleRocket at NoSpamMail.net>
wrote:

> 
> On May 19, 2005, at 7:00 AM, Jamie Kahn Genet wrote:
> 
>> Tony Johansen <tjoh7019 at bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>> Couldn't agree more, long live the top posters!
>>> 
>> 
>> Yes! Long live inconsiderate people! Who gives a sh*t about others?
>> 
>> Regards,
>>  Jamie Kahn Genet
>> --  
> 
> In my experience, business email ends to reply to longer writings and
> more often is not distributed on a mailing list (where bottom posting
> would convey the logical sequence of events to people who didn't
> write the originating email). More likely business email is a reply
> to a person or a group of people, all of whom were aware of the
> contents of the original
> email. In this case, it is not so terrible to show the reply first --
> this way, people know what the original email was, and they are more
> interested in seeing the reply.
> 
> On mailing lists, it can become very hard to determine what the heck
> is going on when top posting is used. This is for the reasons already
> stated - that many people will read the email, but almost none of
> them will know the contents of the email that is being replied to. So
> a logical flow of events makes things clear.
> 
> Outlook dominates the business world and is a defacto standard for
> such writings. Most business people expect top posting and are
> confused by bottom posting. Outlook does not take into account the
> needs of other users - for example, people who subscribe to mailing
> lists. It is possible to bottom post in Outlook, but the vast
> majority of its users don't know how.
> 
> Perhaps a really good email program in the near future will be able
> to examine quoting levels, then rearrange received emails according
> to one's preferences. And we'll never have to spend countless hours
> debating the issue.
> 
> Just call me a flexible top and bottom poster.