On Friday 10 October 2003 22:44, Robert Cummings wrote: > > *Most* bottom posters are savvy enough to trim posts adequately to ensure > > that there is no crap to wade through whilst maintaining some kind of > > continuity within a thread. > > I'll call this premise one, which is by no means a tautology since it > really depends on the disposition of the poster.
That's why I emphasised the *most*. However my theory is that bottom posters are most likely to be people who have been using email and mailing lists long before MS has even heard about the internet. Why bring MS into this? Because if wasn't for their damned Outlooks then top posting would probably be unheard of. > > 1) It is certainly not efficient in bandwidth terms (see above). > > This is based on premise one, which makes it only as valid as the case > where a bottom poster doesn't trim a post. Like I said above *most* of them do. There is a noticeable exception, a gentleman who goes by the name of Tom :-) I'll bet you a beer that bottom posters are more likely to trim their posts than top posters. The very concept of top posting does not encourage people to trim posts, they just add their stuff to the top, probably don't even see or care how much rubbish there is underneath and hit the send button. Anyway all that needs to be said about top vs bottom posting can be found in any decent guide to using mailing lists. > Nothing stopping them from scrolling to the bottom and reading upward. Apart from years of ingrained practice. > From what I keep hearing about how humans read we scan in parallel > anyways and so reading bottom to top should have little difference over > reading from top to bottom. And besides, who ever said reading from top > to bottom is the "best" way. Heck, some languages read right to left. But we're talking about English which usually goes from left to right and from top to bottom (at least does where I come from!) > Feel free to break the mold and try alternatives ;) Heck I might even be brave enough to try InterJinn. -- Jason Wong -> Gremlins Associates -> www.gremlins.biz Open Source Software Systems Integrators * Web Design & Hosting * Internet & Intranet Applications Development * ------------------------------------------ Search the list archives before you post http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=php-general ------------------------------------------ /* Have a nice diurnal anomaly. */ -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
