Why do people detest top posting so much?

[Thomas Wolf]

Bart et al,

On 02/23/2009 10:54 AM, Bart Silverstrim wrote:
> ...
> Well...while I would remind people that many believe extremists should
> be shot, the "telling" part is more or less noticing a potential
> trend...I'm just pointing out that there is a potentially valid
> observation mixed in with the pointed jab, that's all.
>    
Making insulting jabs/generalizations on the basis of just 2 data points 
serves no purpose other than to upset people.  What exactly can Derek 
"tell" about me based on the fact that I posted in HTML?  Same thing 
with Noberto's remark about people "from Outlook" feeling top-posting is 
better and, even sillier, that "...they think Windows is better than 
Linux..."  These guys are able to discern *so much* just from the fact 
that someone top-posts or someone forgets to suppress HTML generation.  
I'm surprised not to see them on Geraldo making prognostications for a 
living!

It's attitudes like this that turn some people off Linux.  Imagine some 
hapless newbie who just installed Ubuntu and asks an innocent question 
in this forum.  God forbid he does it in HTML or forgets to reply to a 
query in the thread at the *bottom* of the reply.   By the time the 
slams and jabs have subsided (s)he will have returned to the comfort of 
Windows....but perhaps that is the point.

For the record, I'm not a Windows user.  I've used UNIX/Solaris for more 
than 30 years.  In the  old usenet days, people preferred bottom-posting 
and the newsgroup readers automatically put you in the editor at the end 
of the message.  Not much thinking required.  I don't remember anyone 
ever making a big stink when someone did top-post, though.
I don't think I changed Thunderbird's default (but maybe I did - years 
ago) with respect to message replies.  I did change its default, at some 
point, to do HTML composition because of work (although I think that, 
too, is the default setting nowadays?)  In the mailing lists I've been 
on over the years, nobody ever freaked out when I top-posted.  I think 
recently someone on the netbeans mailing list asked why I always posted 
in HTML - I told him that I wasn't aware that I had - and changed it for 
that domain.  No big deal.  All civilized.

Then I come to this mailing list to ask a question about my Ubuntu 8.10 
X server dying (yes, I'm somewhat of a newbie with respect to Linux) 
and, instead of getting answers, I get slammed for top-posting and, for 
good measure, for posting in HTML.  Very nice (actually, there was one 
nice guy that emailed me privately to let me know that in this mailing 
list, some of the experts were very finicky and that I might not get an 
answer if I top-posted....but by the time I received the e-mail, the cat 
was already out of the bag).

I don't need this.  I'll let younger people ask their questions on this 
mailing list and take their lumps.  I'll just google for potential 
answers.  If I don't find them, I'll just file a bug.

So long and thanks for all the fish.

tom