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[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Lindsay Haisley writes:
 > On Wed, 2013-11-20 at 14:01 +0100, Roel Wagenaar wrote:
 > > And maybe you could stop TOP-posting?

That's a bit quick on the trigger.  I don't recall ever seeing a
top-post from "Tanstaafl" before, for one thing, and that moniker has
been around for as long as I can remember.  See also "handhelds"
(below).

 > In my humble opinion, any post that's less that a visual page in length
 > is more conveniently read if it's top-posted, especially if it is in
 > reference to a much longer quoted post.

"Don't top-post" is usually short for "don't top-post and trim the
quoted material".

If a top-post is really more readable, I'd question whether you need
*any* quoted material.  (Yeah, I know, you only get options like *not*
quoting if you use an Emacs-based MUA, and of course Emacs is listed
as a form of torture next to "waterboarding" in the Geneva Convention
on the treatment of prisoners of war....)

So I can see your point, but I think if you're going to have a rule,
interline posting is by far the better rule for lists like this one.

 > I know it's considered bad list netiquette, but from a practical
 > point of view, I consider it the more convenient format.

Depends on what you're used to.  See

http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp/Teach/IntroSES/socsys.html

Also, the abysmally bad UIs of handheld devices' MUAs are turning the
tide in favor of top-posting (or, for the really perverse,
bottom-posting).