wrote:
I dont like bottom posting. I dont like to scroll down thru yards of previous posts
to get to a "me too" so mostly I delete posts where an answer is hidden yonder at the
bottom. I try to make sure it isnt necessary to reread everything another person
wrote to get at why I am replying.


Thread hijack alert. I am the moderator of another Usenet group
(rec.hunting) where having the quote at the top, and response at the
bottom is a REQUIREMENT. I created a "standard response" when people
would ask "why?" It may or may not be useful here.


If you've read the "Admin" posts about formatting text, you've
undoubtedly seen the part where it says:

2) Any quoted material must be ABOVE the new text, with your
comments (ie. the new text appearing AFTER the quoted text.
Appropriately interspacing the quoted text with your comments
is also allowable (actually, it's preferred). Note that this
is not just something we as the moderators are making up, but
rather is a real internet standard, defined in RFC 1855, section
3.1.1, item 10 (viewable at http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/)).


I've had people over the years ask "why?", especially in light of the
fact that some programs, most notably Microsoft Outlook and Outlook
Express "want" you to do just the opposite. Being that this IS a
reasonable question, I will endeavor to go into that answer from my
point of view.

First of all, let it be known that I use Outlook Express myself (ok, I
wrote this a long time ago - I now use Thunderbird), so I'm not asking
anyone to do something I don't do myself....


But to the real answer:
Quite honestly, in email 1:1 (ie, between just you and 1 other person),
it's totally irrelevant what method is used. Even in group discussions,
it wouldn't be an issue if one method or the other was used exclusively.
The problem occurs when both methods are used as it inevitably leads to
mis-attribution of quoted text (eg. "I didn't say that; JimBob said
that").
It is in fact, the #1 cause of mis-attribution.

So to avoid these problems, one method or the other must be picked and
the only question is "which one?". There are 2 main reasons for us
arbitrarily picking (if we have reasons, is it arbitrary?) for picking
"quote at the top" over "quote below":

1) Item #4 of the posting guidelines says:
"All excess quoted material removed. At a minimum, this should
include the previous person's signature block. A good rule of
thumb is that your comments should have at least, and preferably
more, lines than you quoted."
There are a couple of reasons for this rule in and of itself - reduction
in bandwidth, less likelihood of exceeding INBOX quotas, and reduced
disk space requirements for the archives (yes, every message is saved in
the archives). As a general rule, you should have more text written by
you than you have quoted above - if you don't, you should evaluate what
it is that you have to say.

By having to scroll past the quoted text ("quote at the top"), the user
is given an greater opportunity to delete that un-needed portions of
quoted text. In fact, if you look at the posts where "quote below" is
used, it is virtually unheard of for them to remove any quoted text at
all.


2) "Quote above" allows for a reply on a point-by-point basis; this is
impossible with "quote below". As we know, some posts can be relatively
long and make multiple points (or ask multiple questions). It is
observed that unless you do a point-by-point, some of the points (or
questions) are completely ignored.


3) The "rule compliant signature" (again, the RFC's) states that a
signature must start with "-- " (dash dash space) on a line by itself,
so that email clients can auto delete the signature block on replies.
Putting the quote below will cause any "2nd level" remarks to also be
removed.


Does this help?



--

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Chris Barnes AOL IM: CNBarnes
Yahoo IM: chrisnbarnes
"Usenet really is all about standing around and hitting the ground
with clubs, on a spot where many years earlier a dead horse lay."