Why is Bottom-posting better than Top-posting

Why is Bottom-posting better than Top-posting
By A. Smit and H.W. de Haan

Definitions:

Top-posting: Writing the message above the original text,
when one replies to an email or a post in a newsgroup.

Bottom-posting: The opposite of top-posting. Now the
new message is placed below the original text.

We are fanatic Usenet-readers. As a result we are often
annoyed by people who keep top-posting. This is considered
as not good 'Net etiquette'. The majority of Usenet-users
prefer bottom-posting.

In addition to bottom-posting, it is customary to leave
out non-relevant parts of the message with regard to the
reply, and to put the reply directly beneath the quoted
relevant parts. If you want to know more about writing
new posts. Check out this site:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~hanb/documents/quotingguide.html

Below you can find our arguments why bottom-posting is
better than top-posting.

Because it is proper Usenet Etiquette. Check out the
following URL: http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1855.html .

It is a little outdated but still has a lot of valid
points. Let us quote something from this site:

If you are sending a reply to a message or a posting
be sure you summarize the original at the top of the
message, or include just enough text of the original
to give a context. This will make sure readers
understand when they start to read your response.

Since NetNews, especially, is proliferated by
distributing the postings from one host to another,
it is possible to see a response to a message before
seeing the original. Giving context helps everyone.
But do not include the entire original!

We use a good news reader like Forte Agent. Good
newsreaders like Agent put the signature by default
at the end of the post, which is the Usenet convention.

Microsoft Outlook Express however has some serious bugs.
Let us quote someone we know:

"The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck
is probably the day they start making vacuum cleaners."
-Ernst Jan Plugge

We are programmers ourselves, and we know it is very
easy to implement to put a signature at the end of
the post instead of putting it directly above the
post you are replying to and can not change the position.

Forte Agent has as a feature that reply to a post it
will remove the signature (recognizable by '-- ',
note the extra space) and everything below it, so it
will remove a part of the original message. This is
good Usenet practice so Agent is not faulty.

Outlook Express on the other hand is faulty, check
this bugreport regarding the Usenet signature
delimiter.

[If you want to try Agent, (30 day free trial)
you can get it here.

Bottom -posting makes posts incomprehensible. Firstly:
In normal conversations, one does not answer to
something that has not yet been said. So it is
unclear to reply to the top, whilst the original
message is at the bottom. Secondly: In western
society a book is normally read from top to bottom.

Top-posting forces one to stray from this
convention: Reading some at the top, skipping
to the bottom to read the question, and going
back to the top to continue. This annoyance
increases even more than linear with the number
of top-posts in the message. If someone replies
to a thread and you forgot what the thread was
all about, or that thread was incomplete for some
reasons, it will be quite tiresome to rapidly
understand what the thread was all about, due
to bad posting and irrelevant text which has
not been removed.

To prevent hideously long posts with a minimal
account of new text, it is good Usenet practice
to remove the non-relevant parts and optionally
summarize the relevant parts of the original post,
with regard to one's reply. Top-posting inevitably
leads to long posts, because most top-posters
leave the original message intact. All these
long posts not only clutter up discussions, but
they also clutter up the server space.

Top-posting makes it hard for bottom-posters to
reply to the relevant parts: it not possible to
answer within the original message. Bottom-posting
does not make top-posting any harder.

Some people will argue that quoting looks bad
due line wrapping. This can simply be dealt
with by dropping Outlook Express as a start,
and using only linewidths of 65 - 70 characters.
Otherwise one has do it manually, and that
can be tiresome.

A reason given by stubborn top-posters: they
don't like to scroll to read the new message.
We like to disagree here, because we always
have to scroll down to see the original message
and after that to scroll back up, just to see
to what they are replying to. As a result you
have to scroll twice as much when reading a
top-poster's message. As a counterargument
they say (believe us they do): "You can check
the previous message in the discussion". This
is even more tiresome than scrolling and with
the unreliable nature of Usenet (and even
email is inevitably unreliable), the previous
message in the discussion can be simply
unavailable.

Some newsgroups have strict conventions
concerning posting in their charter. As an
example we can tell you that in most Dutch
newsgroups, you will be warned, killfiled
or maybe even flamed, if you fail to follow
Usenet conventions or if you do not quote
according to the quoting guidelines.

In general: it is better to practice the
guidelines, if one does not want to get
flamed in a newsgroup one just subscribed to.

We can conclude that there are no good
reasons we know of for top-posting. The
most top-posts originate from the minimal
work people spend on making posts. We think
that one should be proud of one's post,
that is it contains relevant content,
well-formed sentences and no irrelevant
'bullsh*t', before uploading to your newsserver.

If the majority of the group will adhere
to this convention, the group will be nicer,
tidier and easier to read.

As a final remark we want to bring
non-quoting into mind. This means that
the original content of an email or Usenet
post is completely removed. It makes it
very hard for a reader to find out to what
and whom one is replying. This phenomenon
can be partly attributed to wrong settings
of news- and email-clients, and partly to
people who want to start with clean replies.

Blair


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TC wrote:
Why is Bottom-posting better than Top-posting
By A. Smit and H.W. de Haan

I think most top posters do so because they're not in the mood to scroll
down 200 lines of text to get to the last reply (after the initial post)
all because someone was unwilling to edit their reply prior to posting.
If people would edit before replying all would likely be well. Saddly
some are unable to edit, WebTV for instance, or so I'm told. Then
again, some are lazy, like me at times.

If you look back at your original msg and consider if I had not edited
out all but just enough so you'd know what I was replying to, there were
175 lines in it, incl your sig lines. You'd have had to scroll thru all
that just so you could read this.

On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 16:38:30 -0700, Grandpa jsdebooATcomcast.net
wrote:

TC wrote:
Why is Bottom-posting better than Top-posting
By A. Smit and H.W. de Haan

I think most top posters do so because they're not in the mood to scroll
down 200 lines of text to get to the last reply (after the initial post)
all because someone was unwilling to edit their reply prior to posting.
If people would edit before replying all would likely be well. Saddly
some are unable to edit, WebTV for instance, or so I'm told. Then
again, some are lazy, like me at times.

If you look back at your original msg and consider if I had not edited
out all but just enough so you'd know what I was replying to, there were
175 lines in it, incl your sig lines. You'd have had to scroll thru all
that just so you could read this.

Yep. Dem folk donw thair in South Foaks jest ain't git da time ta
post correct-like. Yep.

Tracy Barber

Count me as an unrepentant top-poster who prefers that others do the same
most of the time. Let's not get all nit-picky about things like this - we've
all coped with a mixture of top- and bottom -posting for a good long time,
and I for one believe we're all smart enough to continue to deal with
different styles. Kill file me if you wish; that's your decision. My
decision is to continue to top-post.

Ada

"TC" wrote in message
...
Why is Bottom-posting better than Top-posting
By A. Smit and H.W. de Haan

Definitions:

Top-posting: Writing the message above the original text,
when one replies to an email or a post in a newsgroup.

Bottom-posting: The opposite of top-posting. Now the
new message is placed below the original text.

We are fanatic Usenet-readers. As a result we are often
annoyed by people who keep top-posting. This is considered
as not good 'Net etiquette'. The majority of Usenet-users
prefer bottom-posting.

"TC" wrote in message
...
Why is Bottom-posting better than Top-posting
By A. Smit and H.W. de Haan



Often, the name of the person to whom the reply is addressed is not given,
so it is not easy to understand the comment.


Tony
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On Thu, 15 Jan 2004 04:23:29 GMT, "Ada Prill"
wrote:


Count me as an unrepentant top-poster who prefers that others do the same
most of the time. Let's not get all nit-picky about things like this - we've
all coped with a mixture of top- and bottom -posting for a good long time,
and I for one believe we're all smart enough to continue to deal with
different styles. Kill file me if you wish; that's your decision. My
decision is to continue to top-post.

Ada



Ada:

This item was neither written by me (authors credited)
nor targeted to you or any other individual.

I merely repeated it here, as we have had the discussion
in recent times and we also appear to have some new posters.

I would never want to kill file your valuable (and
expertly edited) contributions.

I even reread these types of articles myself from time
to time... in order that I remember not to fall into
some of the traps of writing.

Blair



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-----== Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! =-----

On Thu, 15 Jan 2004 04:23:29 GMT, "Ada Prill"
wrote:


Count me as an unrepentant top-poster who prefers that others do the same
most of the time. Let's not get all nit-picky about things like this - we've
all coped with a mixture of top- and bottom -posting for a good long time,
and I for one believe we're all smart enough to continue to deal with
different styles. Kill file me if you wish; that's your decision. My
decision is to continue to top-post.

Ada

As a newcomer to this news group I note that you have exercised your
right to choose (to top post) but failed to give any credible reasons
for doing so - or any incredible ones for that matter.

One reason for bottom posting is that many readers/contributors
participate in numerous news groups and threads. When there is a
response we choose to read, it's nice to have a brief recap of what
one is responding to BEFORE we read the response.

I must also note the obvious belligerence in your post: "unrepentant
top-poster" and "kill file me if you wish". Those comments seem out of
place on r.c.s.d.

Perhaps you might explain WHY you top-post and the reason for your
apparent belligerence.

Hugh

It all depends...
If I am following a thread, I already know what the previous poster has
said. Scrolling to the bottom of a post to see the reply gets old fast.
If the posts are short and no scrolling is involved then top/bottom posting
doesn't make any difference.
If it's a complicated message then inline responses are appropriate.
I'm with Ada on this topic.
And I guess I'll stay away from Dutch newsgroups...

Bill
"A.E. Gelat" wrote in message
...
"TC" wrote in message
...
Why is Bottom-posting better than Top-posting
By A. Smit and H.W. de Haan



Often, the name of the person to whom the reply is addressed is not given,
so it is not easy to understand the comment.


Tony

On Thu, 15 Jan 2004 17:08:58 GMT, "Bill Sharpe"
wrote:

It all depends...
If I am following a thread, I already know what the previous poster has
said. Scrolling to the bottom of a post to see the reply gets old fast.

What if the reply is several days later and you have read numerous
other news groups and threads in between postings? Do you really
remember what every previous poster said? I am humbled if you do.

Excessive scrolling is caused by responders failing to properly edit
previous posts in my opinion.

If the posts are short and no scrolling is involved then top/bottom posting
doesn't make any difference.

....same question as before.

If it's a complicated message then inline responses are appropriate.

Agreed - otherwise proper editing prior to response solves the
problem.

Hugh

"J. Hugh Sullivan" wrote in message
...

As a newcomer to this news group I note that you have exercised your
right to choose (to top post) but failed to give any credible reasons
for doing so - or any incredible ones for that matter.

For those of us who have news readers that bunch postings by thread, it is
extremely irritating to read message A, scroll through A to get to B six
seconds later, scroll through A and B to get to C six seconds after that,
etc. If I have not recently seen A and B, it is easy enough to refresh my
memory by scrolling down, but the usual situation is that I have JUST read
the postings that I must scroll through to get to the new information. When
the thread gets long, I really detest having to go through multiple screens
of previously read stuff to get to something at the bottom that says "I
agree with XXX," when I could have found this brief entry quite easily on
the top.

Perhaps you might explain WHY you top-post and the reason for your
apparent belligerence.

No belligerence intended. I simply said that I was not going to abide by
this newly-invented "rule" and that anyone who chose not to read my messages
under those circumstances had an easy way (killfile) not to be annoyed by
them. I've already explained my reasons for thinking top-posting superior
above. I have no desire to irritate anyone, so I am just giving notice that
I will continue with my previous practice so that anyone who is bothered by
that can opt out. I have no problem with Blair, who has been a valuable
contributer to this group for many years. I do have a problem with being
told how to format my messages. When I am answering specific questions, BTW,
I usually post my answers after the questions as I have here; general
comments have been and will be top-posted.

Ada