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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 It is a little outdated but still has a lot of valid points.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 -----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =----- http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! -----== Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! =----- |
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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. |
#3
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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 |
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I generally prefer top-posting, as it is quick and direct-to-the-point.
Bottom-posting is appropriate where you are responding specifically to something posted earlier. Often, however, what has been said in earlier threads is just background and only relevant in terms of general context. If I am contributing to a topic--as in this case--but not responding specifically to a particular posting, I will top-post. I could have dropped down behind hundreds of lines of previous comments and posted this comment as a bottom-posting. Instead, I deleted it all in respect for those who feel top-posting is a major breach of Usenet protocol (which is probably an oxmoyron). Ed Jackson |
#5
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I would like to add what is perhaps the last word in this thread. While I
prefer bottoms, tops are pleasant as well. :^) boB |
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On Fri, 16 Jan 2004 00:57:40 GMT, Bob Ingraham
wrote: I would like to add what is perhaps the last word in this thread. While I prefer bottoms, tops are pleasant as well. :^) Last word. I want last word. --- word Tracy Barber |
#7
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I would like to add what is perhaps the last word in this thread. While I
prefer bottoms, tops are pleasant as well. :^) Last word. I want last word. --- word Tracy Barber Word Up! David, feeling very paranoid! |
#8
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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. |
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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 -----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =----- http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! -----== Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! =----- |
#10
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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 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 |
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