[OT] Why do people detest top posting so much?

[Lorenzo Taylor]

How about this. Don't top post. It clutters up a message with all the last 250 
messages before it at the bottom of your message. Ouch, my poor listserve. Don't 
bottom post. I can't speak for everyone, but I myself don't want to read the 
entire conversation 250 times at the top of each message. When reading a book, 
do you read the first chapter twice before reading the second chapter and then 
read the first and second chapters in their entirety before reading the third? 
If you do, you could read the book much faster if you didn't reread all those 
previous chapters.

Instead, a person who composes a reply should try to make the message clear 
enough that anyone interested can understand it without quoting at all. Or if 
you must quote in order to make your reply clear, quote only the point to which 
you are responding.

Top posting is undesirable because it messes up the natural flow of a conversation.

and

Why is top posting bad?
Because it messes up the natural flow of a conversation.

The above examples make sense, whereas:

I was just asking this because I wanted to get some information about the state 
of e-mail on this list. Why is top posting bad?

Tom Thumb
Senior consultant, Thumb Consulting, LTD

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Because it messes up the natural flow of a conversation

doesn't make any sense and requires a lot of extra reading to get to the meat of 
the answer. Not to mention that the Tom Thumb example above is by far not the 
worst I have seen on this list and on a good number of other lists. Bottom line: 
The way I see it, unless you are responding to multiple specific points, a quote 
is largely unnecessary and should be avoided wherever possible. I have purposely 
set T-Bird not to quote my messages for this reason. And if I absolutely feel I 
must quote, I find that copying and pasting the necessary line or two works 
quite well.

HTH,
Lorenzo
-- 
  Great Goddess Isis,
Thou who art above the stars,
  Grant us peace and love.
--Lorenzo Taylor