Can someone explain to me why there are people on mailing lists that have an extreme violent hatred of top posting? Why is this practice so evil that someone feels compelled to take the time to post about it on nearly every mailing list I’m on? I’m honestly asking for an explanation here.
The perils of top-posting come from the days back when Usenet and email were king. The prevailing etiquette of the day was to snip-and-post, putting your reply to any point just below what you were responding to.
I typically snip-and-post to this day, purely because it makes sense to me to read something in context. If I’m unfamiliar with the thread discussed in the email and the first thing I see is the response, I’m going to feel a bit out of sorts.
I think top-posting is more the norm these days, and I lament that a bit. I know it’s the norm here at work, and to conform to standard practices, I typically … :cringe: top-post. Email me outside of work, however, and you’re typically going to see me bottom-post.
[I think Weblogs may have something to do with top-posting being more acceptable.]
I agree that the snip-and-post method is the best, is that what people are asking for when they refer to bottom posting (or not top posting)?
I see a lot of one line replies added underneath the entirety of the original e-mail. The snipping issue aside, I’d much rather see that line at the top so I don’t have to scroll through the whole e-mail first.
Also, when I’m on a mobile e-mail client, I generally download only the first few thousand bytes of the message so I like having the new info up top.
I agree that the snip-and-post method is the best, is that what people are asking for when they refer to bottom posting (or not top posting)?
Typically, yes.
I can understand your concerns via mobile email as well, but I’m not sure that I’d try to follow a serious conversation from a mobile location. That may just be me.
For me personally I find top posting annoying because it makes it difficult to follow the conversation up until that point. I suppose you could compare it to asking someone a question and then two weeks later having them call you up with the first things out of their mouth being the answer to your question. Of course it’s been two weeks since you asked the question so you have know idea what they are talking about with getting some background first.
This concept becomes an even bigger problem when people write poor subject lines and/or delete pertinent portions of the email they are responding to instead of quoting it. The opposite can also be true, where people quote back too much, by including things like the four previous sigs.
Ten plus years ago it seemed like everyone knew these rules as the common and correct way to have email conversations. Times have changed a lot since then.
I’ve more or less given up on trying to proactively advocate my view of avoiding top posting unless I’m asked 🙂
I edit my replies to mailing lists and will intersperse my responses if I’m replying to several different points. If it is a general reply, I trim the previous thread as appropriate and put my text at the top.
I actually have a client that can’t find the reply if it is on the bottom.
Reminded by another instance today, I hereby claim that if you aren’t going to edit the message you’re replying to, you should put your comments at the top. Putting your message at the bottom under the entire text fo the previous message (including signatures and so forth) has got to be the worst possible option.
A. Because it breaks the flow and reads backwards.
> Q. Why is top posting considered harmful?
I’ll admit that in some intra-office email threads, I’ve succumbed to top-posting, if it was already started in a long chain of replies. But generally, I try to stick to the interpersed style of reply.
And I always try to edit out unneeded text from the original messages.
What bugged me more were the .sig nazis who used to threaten to hunt you down and sledgehammer your modem into oblivion if your signature was more than four lines long.
Some of these same people would ignore the fact that their own signatures were three solid lines of geek code, with more total bytes than the shorter lines of the “long” sigs that they complained about.
I’m an unrepentant top poster
I read my email on a PDA, downloading over deadly slow GPRS.
I download in 5k chunks. If you’re bottom posting on a really long thread that you have not trimmed, then you’re a really annoying person, ok!
besides, all those with fast desktop PCs have much faster connections (i’d love 56k on my pda). If they want the whole thread there in logical order, then they can go find a threaded email client and quit with the top-post bashing.
top posting 
I can.
The perils of top-posting come from the days back when Usenet and email were king. The prevailing etiquette of the day was to snip-and-post, putting your reply to any point just below what you were responding to.
I typically snip-and-post to this day, purely because it makes sense to me to read something in context. If I’m unfamiliar with the thread discussed in the email and the first thing I see is the response, I’m going to feel a bit out of sorts.
I think top-posting is more the norm these days, and I lament that a bit. I know it’s the norm here at work, and to conform to standard practices, I typically … :cringe: top-post. Email me outside of work, however, and you’re typically going to see me bottom-post.
[I think Weblogs may have something to do with top-posting being more acceptable.]
I agree that the snip-and-post method is the best, is that what people are asking for when they refer to bottom posting (or not top posting)?
I see a lot of one line replies added underneath the entirety of the original e-mail. The snipping issue aside, I’d much rather see that line at the top so I don’t have to scroll through the whole e-mail first.
Also, when I’m on a mobile e-mail client, I generally download only the first few thousand bytes of the message so I like having the new info up top.
On Top Posting
Alex asked why people hate top-posting. I think I provided a good , concise answer on why people prefer bottom-posting..
I’m not one those jerks that’ll upbraid someone for top-posting on a mailing list [well, not anymore, anyway; I’m sure you c…
Typically, yes.
I can understand your concerns via mobile email as well, but I’m not sure that I’d try to follow a serious conversation from a mobile location. That may just be me.
[Notice how I bottom-posted this reply. ;)]
For me personally I find top posting annoying because it makes it difficult to follow the conversation up until that point. I suppose you could compare it to asking someone a question and then two weeks later having them call you up with the first things out of their mouth being the answer to your question. Of course it’s been two weeks since you asked the question so you have know idea what they are talking about with getting some background first.
This concept becomes an even bigger problem when people write poor subject lines and/or delete pertinent portions of the email they are responding to instead of quoting it. The opposite can also be true, where people quote back too much, by including things like the four previous sigs.
Ten plus years ago it seemed like everyone knew these rules as the common and correct way to have email conversations. Times have changed a lot since then.
I’ve more or less given up on trying to proactively advocate my view of avoiding top posting unless I’m asked 🙂
Top posting is much faster than ‘fidonet posting’ so-to-speak. I don’t like doing it, but on the other hand, my time is valuable to me 🙂
Also, it seems that more and more mail clients make it harder to do anything but…
Tell me about it. I smack those clients painfully.
I edit my replies to mailing lists and will intersperse my responses if I’m replying to several different points. If it is a general reply, I trim the previous thread as appropriate and put my text at the top.
I actually have a client that can’t find the reply if it is on the bottom.
logical flow of conversation
because it breaks the
Reminded by another instance today, I hereby claim that if you aren’t going to edit the message you’re replying to, you should put your comments at the top. Putting your message at the bottom under the entire text fo the previous message (including signatures and so forth) has got to be the worst possible option.
I’ve always liked this example:
I’ll admit that in some intra-office email threads, I’ve succumbed to top-posting, if it was already started in a long chain of replies. But generally, I try to stick to the interpersed style of reply.
And I always try to edit out unneeded text from the original messages.
What bugged me more were the .sig nazis who used to threaten to hunt you down and sledgehammer your modem into oblivion if your signature was more than four lines long.
Some of these same people would ignore the fact that their own signatures were three solid lines of geek code, with more total bytes than the shorter lines of the “long” sigs that they complained about.
Some comments on mail reply formatting are in my site:
http://mailformat.dan.info/quoting/
I’m an unrepentant top poster
I read my email on a PDA, downloading over deadly slow GPRS.
I download in 5k chunks. If you’re bottom posting on a really long thread that you have not trimmed, then you’re a really annoying person, ok!
besides, all those with fast desktop PCs have much faster connections (i’d love 56k on my pda). If they want the whole thread there in logical order, then they can go find a threaded email client and quit with the top-post bashing.
Couild it be that Bottom posting seems is for the elite?
I have a new take on this old problem and am trying to get the word out:
http://www.PalmYanof[...]trimpost.htm