xxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

**** Posted and mailed ****


I received an email regarding my comments on top posting which would
normally "tick me off" too but it wasn't a "flaming" mail. It's
a serious request and should receive a valid reply. I also thought that
others may find it informative (hopefully) which is why
I'm posting it to the group. The context of the note is below but the
identify of the sender has been deleted.


**** Start of email text ****

Hello, I read your post about top posting on the rec.gardens.edible
newsgroup, and have a question. I'm mainly curious, so don't take
this as any kind of attack. It's not intended to be.

What's wrong with top posting? I understand refusing to read replies
that are full of previous messages, but I cannot see why either
posting method would be better than the other.


**** End of email text ****


This issue has been debated/argued/discussed more times than I could
probably count. Without going into a whole historical tirade
about usenet I'll simply post the following example which hopefully will
make it clear along with a few links for those interested
enough to do some reading.

Example which hopefully shows how difficult it is to follow:

Dave: Oh! Now it makes sense to me. Okay! No more top-posting for me!
Bob: It's annoying because it reverses the normal order of
conversation. In fact, many people ignore top-posted articles.
Dave: What's so wrong with that?
Bob: That's posting your response *before* the article you're
quoting.
Dave: People keep bugging me about "top-posting." What does that
mean?
A: Top posters.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on Usenet?

http://www.the-foxhole.org/strads/sp...faq.html#avoid
http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote2.html#ss2.3

There is a plethora of information and discussions on the use of usenet
if a google search is done.

Bottom line? Top posting is just considered to be rude by the majority
(notice I didn't say all) of folks using usenet.
--
Steve