[rescue] Top vs. Bottom posting (was: revived: TiBook G4 867...)

[Lionel Peterson]

As the spark that kicked this off this round of top vs. bottom posting, I feel
a need to respond.

I agree with the 'first thing you see' argument, and I also tend to trim
responses, rather than simply add my 2B" worth to a verbatim copy of the
entire conversation to that point. (As I did here)

When multiple points are addressed, in-line responses are the only way to
respond, but since email clients that support threads, and if all involved
make an effort to have a meaningful subject line and stay on topic, it works
well IMHO.

In conversation, nothing drives me up a wall faster than someone telling a
story by saying "so I said..., then he said, then I said, and Pete said..."
forcing me to relive their conversation rather than just telling me the
outcome of the conversation, and having to scroll past previous comments to
get to the new information feels equally frustrating.

So, bottom line:

I trim my replies as appropriate.

I type in continuous lines, leaving it to your mail client to impose line
breaks as best suits your device.

I prefer plain text to 'rich format' (HTML).

And I top post if I only have one response because IMHO it's easier to follow
the flow of the email thread in context.

Lionel

> On Apr 13, 2018, at 6:05 AM, Mark Benson <md.benson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Frankly it's largely contextual for my 2 cents. If it's a long thread, lots
> of points that need replying to such as you'd find in a mailing list, yes,
> bottom posting is prettymuch required.