The message
from (Philip) contains these words:

The merits of Top vs Bottom posting rather depends on how you read
your Usenet.

If you are following through a thread reading post after post (as I
frequently do) then top posting is ideal.

It's how I treat it, but as the posts arrive.

I find that I rarely forget what the theme of the thread is about, and
if I do I only need to nip back to the start of the branch to refresh
my memory.

Hang on a mo' while I go and count the newsgroups I subscribe to. back
in a mo'.

Hmmm. Thirty.

Most of them, it's true, have only the occasional post, but others can
have thousands a week. The Shed, for instance. So, no. I very often
can't remember broad brushstrokes, let alone the fine detail of who said
what, and in which thread.

Do you ever use Google to read the Usenet, maybe if you were to try
that then you may appreciate why people top post.

No, I never go to an online server for my news: I have an offline
reader, and all the posts to the groups I'm subscribed to since my last
connection are compressed into a packet on the server and downloaded
compressed, then expanded and read at leisure.

When I started reading Usenet, I never saw top posting at all.

Bah! Yoofertoday!

--
Rusty Hinge http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/tqt.htm

Dark thoughts about the Wumpus concerto played with piano,
iron bar and two sledge hammers. (Wumpus, 15/11/03)