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,

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It is a little outdated but still has a lot of valid points.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.

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!

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

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 ghy 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,

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.

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!

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

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

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

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

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.

concerning posting in their charter. As an example we can tell you that in most Dutch

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

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

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

people who want to start with clean replies.

.
Molehill -------> Mountain .
Charlie Jensen

Live right,
Eat right,
Exercise ... ... ... Die anyway !

Thank you, Bob. I certainly meant no offense to anyone - but obviously this issue pushed a lot of my buttons! I have been posting to this group and its predecessor since 1996, and there have been many changes in the way

has ever paid any attention to (at least since 1996) seems arbitrary at best.

Anyway, I appreciate the kind words from you and others. And if Blair wants to bottom-post, I'll read his posts anyway, because he usually has something good to contribute.

Last word. I want last word.

What if the reply is several days later and you have read numerous

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.

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

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)

"Sure" or "I agree" as the only reply is as superfluous as mammary glands on a boar hog. It takes less than minimum intelligence.

In view of my continued request that people edit to eliminate the problem you mentioned, your qestion is not pertinent.

People who violate long standing precedent and netiquette will be

I'll take your advice and quit trying to educate them.

This illustrates perfectly the selfishness and silliness of the *only* argument that top-posters have ever been able to present for their behavior.
"I am too lazy to do some scrolling - wears me right out to press that PgDn key 3 or 4 times! I don't care how much top posting makes things unintelligible or difficult for others, I'm going to keep doing it *MY* way."

Hardly a newly-invented rule, having been around since the start of USENET.

I have not said what I WANT or DON"T WANT people to do - you assumed that to justify your point of view. Perhaps you should wait until you are in middle shcool to respond - or get help with reading.

You could at least try to help them overcome their lack of consideration and ignorance vice accepting it.

Little feller, I did not appeal to any authority (see my previous about school). And your ignorance of netiquette is very naive. "Thou shalt not kill" is an archaic law based on ancient technology (club, bow and arrow, etc.) - does that rule embarrass you because killing methods have improved? Long dead technology often is for people who never could comprehend the old and their only haven is something new.
You pass the quack test.

You didn't have to respond... but I give you permission to have the last word in this thread should you choose.

I can't remember when I didn't have a nice day - it's been decades.

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.

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.

++++++++++++++
Hugh, Sir:
You have a point, for retaining certain informative posts in this excellent group.

RCSD is fortunate to include scholarly tidbits such as TC's 8:28pm

which are useful for far more than just identifying the specific stamps in question.

The sure way to preserve that kind of post would be to "SaveAs" to a good Folder on your hard drive, or to a backup Iomega ZipDisk, or even

posts for several months if you wish, provided that you do not

in 3 days or so. As Tracy mentioned, any individual can choose to get rid of every post as soon as he has read it. You can even delete any header without even reading that one, if that is your choice.

(Look at today's separate "reply" to Rodney's April Fool story.)

There happens to be plenty of space on my PC, so my own choice has

Service. If spam appears and annoys me, that one gets deleted.
But if some Post is so special that i might want it a year from now, then it becomes essential to save that one in a separate Folder before

Trivia such as this one can simply disappear with age, along with overly-long threads and bantering!

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

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.

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.

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.

1/23/2004 3:24 PM

Forge -------> Forgery

Bob Ingraham

with several hundred posts, respond to maybe 50 of them, and remember the continuity of every one if responses are top-posted - and that you never have to scroll down to look at the prior post to follow the thread?

That's in addition to working with stamps, coins, guns, playing golf, fishing, genealogy, travel, woking out at the gym, ham radio, enjoying the kids and grandkids, Scouts and paying bills - and growing older.
And I was told recently that some folks still have to work.

For those who are capable of following more than one thread at a time, it's much simpler to read an edited previous post before composing a reply in my opinion. In such a case one is already at the bottom ready for posting. Obviously it becomes more of a problem if the prior poster doesn't know how to edit.

I find it amusing that this topic occupies more band width on this

picture? No need to remind me that I am contributing more to the problem than the solution.

1/27/2004 8:45 AM

Ah, Peter, you've done it now. He called me a boor recently. Shall we form an exclusive society? I'm sure that others would qualify for membership.

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

It's not my first post to this group. And if you thought I was

can be so easily mis-read". I expressed myself in a very polite manner and Ada replied in a polite manner. It appears that you are the only one with boorish manners - or maybe you just misread what I said.

were set up. I reply to general topics by top posting and to specifics in the same way you do. Keep up your informative posts.

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

Er, that was my point. You offered an analogy/example of why people shouldn't do what you don't wnat them to do. I offered a similar example of why people shouldn't do what I don't want them to do. That it's obviously a stupid example was my point. The whooshing sound is of it going right over your head.

Yea, yeah, whatever. People who try to appeal to authority that doens't exist, tradition that has never been proven to be as significant or popular as they claim, and do not move with the times but stay stuck in archaic 'laws' based on long dead technology are equally embarrasing.

You do that. It'll make for a quieter place.

Ya'll have a nice day.

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.

Are you getting digests or something? Each of the posts in the

though they were e-mail, in a linear fashion.

Answer one, close, move on to the next message.

Fortunately, I don't have to see all the same thread in the same message. That's gotta be nuts!

Anyway, I like my simple method... :^) I don't have those issues of having 3 messages of the same thread in 1 message and have to scroll through them. Yikes!