On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 12:16 AM, Dirkjan Ochtman <dirk...@ochtman.nl> wrote: > On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 8:09 AM, Paul Davis <paul.joseph.da...@gmail.com> > wrote: >> +1. Top posting is the worst. > > In case you're being sarcastic (which seems likely), perhaps that is > not the most productive response to a fairly low-key, open email. If > you disagree, you could just say so and maybe explain why you think > top-posting is as good or better...
Given the low-key and open email I didn't think a humorous response would be frowned upon. For a serious answer, the top vs. bottom posting debate has always seemed like more of a personal style issue to me. Take for instance the email you sent about in response to my joke. Given that your bottom post trimmed away the entire context of the joke, unless someone sees the original they may wonder why you thought I was being sarcastic. I'd say that's a more important question than top or bottom posting. Given that we're a mailing list I really do prefer inline posting much more than strict top or bottom. If I'm replying generally, I top post and rely on non dumb clients hiding quoted text. If I'm replying point-by-point I inline post. Yes it makes reading a single email from a long thread a bit more difficult but who cares when we have public archives? If I get confused following a thread there's an exact record of who said what. Alternatively I can just hit reply and ask the original authors if a reply was confused somehow. And then there's all the points raised by Nick in this thread about clients that promote top posting due to interface, whether that be difficult scrolling on a phone or GMail's compose windows. In the end its fine to voice a personal preference on the issue but that's all that's gonna happen. We're not going to require people to bottom post (nor could we) and getting all upset about posting style isn't very productive for numerous reasons (nor do I think anyone would). That said, making an off hand joke was probably a much more efficient method to express how much I don't have an opinion on this issue.
