[OT] Top posting is a PITA

[Jacek Generowicz]

"John Roth" <newsgroups at jhrothjr.com> writes:

> AFAIC, it doesn't matter whether you put your response at the
> top or bottom; what matters to me is whether I can find what
> you're talking about quickly. That means ruthless pruning of the
> post so that old stuff gets deleted.

Look, y'all, email and usenet aren't all that dissimilar, in this
respect, from face-to-face conversation which has been
interrupted. Imagine you pick up a conversation whith someone, which
was interrupted a few minutes, hours, or days before.

Do you go up to your interlocutor, say whatever you wanted to say
next, and then recite (both sides of) the whole conversation you had
before? No.

Do you _first_ repeat (both sides of) the whole conversation you had
before, and at the very end (ten minutes later, or so) say whatever it
is that you wanted to say? No.  Does your interlocutor then repeat
everything both of you have said so far once again, before adding his
new contribution? No.

Or, do you, re-establish context by saying something like "Concerning
your point about fubaring the frobnicators", and then make your point
("I would never fubar a frobnicator, without barzotting it first") ?

Then, maybe you wish to make a second point ... in which case you
would establish the relevant context again ("As for what you said
about pinging a pong"), and make your next point, relevant to the
context you just established ("When pinging a pong, you must take care
to pang it first").


I find that people who do not make the effort to quote the relevant
part(s) of messages to which they are replying, and do not make the
effort to put their replies close to (ie just after) the relevant
citations they have left in, more often than not, also fail to make
the effort to organize their own thoughts in their entire
consideration of the discussion.

Exchanges with top-posters are usually of a low quality: top-posting
makes it difficult to follow the thread ... but top-posters tend to
write codswallop more often that those who trim and organize their
replies carefully.

This is partly because the process of trimming the original post,
forces you to identfy the relevant points being made, which helps you
notice more clearly what is actually being said. Partly, it is because
if you post on usenet for more than a day and fail to notice that
top-posting sucks, then ... well, that says something about your
perspicacity.