On Nov 9, 2010, at 12:29 AM, "Benjamin F. Klahn KSC" <bfklahn@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Hey, > > Look, this is a stupid argument, I'm done. I'm not going to change the > way I converse with hundreds of other groups and individuals for one > confused guy on a mailing list somewhere. Actually, it's not one confused guy. Most lists I'm a member of strongly frown on top-posting, for the very reasons I mention. > If you need context scroll > down, You miss the point entirely. Scrolling down will give me *general* context. It will not let me know which part of a long message you were replying to. Simple example: ----- From: Bob Yes. Alice wrote: > Wasn't that new Looney Labs game > great? > > Oh, BTW, there's this new sushi > place. Shall we check it out? ----- I've seen messages like this many times. Scroll down all you like, but there's no way to tell which part of Alice's message Bob is replying to. > it's easier to have one person who needs it scroll down to be > reminded of what the conversation is instead of having everyone scroll > past something they've already read. So trim your quotes appropriately. There's no reason to quote the whole thing if you're only responding to a line or two. > > If you don't like top posting check out message grouping. All the > modern e-mail clients do it, gmail, thunderbird, outlook, etc. I love message grouping. It serves an entirely different purpose, though, and is absolutely irrelevant to this discussion. Top-posting loses information. It breaks conversational order. It is harder to read and harder to follow. Don't do it. > > Regards, > -Benjamin Best, -- Marnen Laibow-Koser http://www.marnen.org marnen@xxxxxxxxxx