Top-quoting defined [was: namespace dictionaries ok?]

[Iain King]

Duncan Booth wrote:
> James Stroud wrote:
>
> > On Tuesday 25 October 2005 00:31, Duncan Booth wrote:
> >> P.S. James, *please* could you avoid top-quoting
> >
> > Were it not for Steve Holden's providing me with a link off the list,
> > I would have never known to what it is you are referring. I have read
> > some relevant literature to find that this is more widely known as
> > "top-posting". I'll go with majority rules here, but I would like to
> > say that my lack of "netiquette" in this matter comes from
> > practicality and not malice.
>
> No, I didn't think it was malice which is why I just added what I
> considered to be a polite request at the end of my message. I assumed that
> most people either knew the phrase or could find out in a few seconds using
> Google so there wasn't much point in rehashing the arguments. Probably I
> should have equally lambasted Ron for the heinous crime of bottom-quoting.
>
> In general, there are three ways to quote a message: top-quoting, which
> forces people to read the message out of order; bottom-quoting which is
> nearly as bad because it hides the new comments; and proper quoting in
> context where you trim the message and put specific points under brief bits
> of context.
>

Just to continue this off-topic argument :)  -

I've never heard the terms top-quoting, bottom-quoting.  I've heard
top-posting and bottom-posting before (lots).  But regardless of
however many people use top-quoting and bottom-quoting, surely you're
using them the wrong way around?  If I top-post, then that means that
the quote is at the bottom, no?

To quote someone's sig block:
 "To top-post is human, to bottom-post and snip is sublime."

Iain