From: MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com
What is top posting anyway?
A handy stick with which older netizens can beat newbies.
At some time in the mid-1990s, many people without USENET access acquired it. Some USENET oldtimers resented this. One characteristic of the newbies was many of them used some piece of software, Microsoft Outlook Express perhaps, was configured in such a way that by default if you just typed a reply it went at the top of the message, above the material to which it was replying.
At about that time, in some newsgroups, people started viciously attacking the practice of "top-posting" and asserting that it was bad netiquette.
I've participated in USENET since about 1990. At that time, bottom posting was the norm but top posting was not at all uncommon. It was a matter of personal style and nobody ever commented on it. It is simply not true that there was any prohibition on it.
There is an unofficial RFC 1855, e.g. http://www.dtcc.edu/cs/ rfc1855.html which is sometime quoted as deprecating top-posting. But it is clear from context that the point of the RFC is _primarily_ concerned with _not_ quoting the the entire original ("It is extremely bad form to simply reply to a message by including all the previous message: edit out all the irrelevant material"), and the fact that it mentions putting the summary at the top seems incidental. The actual text is:
"If you are sending a reply to a message or a posting be sure you summarize the original at the top of the message, or include just enough text of the original to give a context. This will make sure readers understand when they start to read your response. Since NetNews, especially, is proliferated by distributing the postings from one host to another, it is possible to see a response to a message before seeing the original. Giving context helps everyone. But do not include the entire original!"
It is very much like splitting an infinitive. Don't split infinitives if you know your copy will be edited by someone who thinks there's something wrong with splitting infinitives. But do know that these people have nothing to back themselves up with; even Fowler's English Usage sees nothing wrong with it.
Similarly if you are participating in a group that contains people that dislike top-posting, don't do it. But don't be gulled into believing that there's more here than personal taste.
On 9/11/05, Daniel P. B. Smith dpbsmith@verizon.net wrote:
From: MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com
What is top posting anyway?
A handy stick with which older netizens can beat newbies.
At some time in the mid-1990s, many people without USENET access acquired it. Some USENET oldtimers resented this. One characteristic of the newbies was many of them used some piece of software, Microsoft Outlook Express perhaps, was configured in such a way that by default if you just typed a reply it went at the top of the message, above the material to which it was replying.
At about that time, in some newsgroups, people started viciously attacking the practice of "top-posting" and asserting that it was bad netiquette.
I've participated in USENET since about 1990. At that time, bottom posting was the norm but top posting was not at all uncommon. It was a matter of personal style and nobody ever commented on it. It is simply not true that there was any prohibition on it.
There is an unofficial RFC 1855, e.g. http://www.dtcc.edu/cs/ rfc1855.html which is sometime quoted as deprecating top-posting. But it is clear from context that the point of the RFC is _primarily_ concerned with _not_ quoting the the entire original ("It is extremely bad form to simply reply to a message by including all the previous message: edit out all the irrelevant material"), and the fact that it mentions putting the summary at the top seems incidental. The actual text is:
"If you are sending a reply to a message or a posting be sure you summarize the original at the top of the message, or include just enough text of the original to give a context. This will make sure readers understand when they start to read your response. Since NetNews, especially, is proliferated by distributing the postings from one host to another, it is possible to see a response to a message before seeing the original. Giving context helps everyone. But do not include the entire original!"
It is very much like splitting an infinitive. Don't split infinitives if you know your copy will be edited by someone who thinks there's something wrong with splitting infinitives. But do know that these people have nothing to back themselves up with; even Fowler's English Usage sees nothing wrong with it.
Similarly if you are participating in a group that contains people that dislike top-posting, don't do it. But don't be gulled into believing that there's more here than personal taste.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I've only been on computers for 10 years, and I really see no problem with putting it either way. Gmail/firefox automatically make my cursor at the top... --~~~~
On 11/09/05, Daniel P. B. Smith dpbsmith@verizon.net wrote:
From: MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com
What is top posting anyway?
A handy stick with which older netizens can beat newbies.
Y'think? This is the first mailing list I've ever been a member of, and I only joined in June!
I don't like top posting as it makes it impossible to see what was said before - I like to see what someone is replying to.
Dan
The problem with top-posting is not so much the top-posting itself, it is what it generally goes along with: copying the entire text of the article being replied to, and not being specific about what you're replying to.
Generally, one should be including only enough context to make it obvious what's being answered.
-Matt
On Sun, Sep 11, 2005 at 06:24:27PM -0700, Matt Brown wrote:
The problem with top-posting is not so much the top-posting itself, it is what it generally goes along with: copying the entire text of the article being replied to, and not being specific about what you're replying to.
Full-quoting is really annoying for those of us who read mailing lists in digest mode: it means that we have to page through reams of repeated text in order to read the new messages. Since digest mode is a useful and supported feature of the list, it makes sense to discourage people from gratuitously breaking it by full-quoting.
Full-quoting also makes using Web archives more difficult, since a chain of full-quoted messages tailing off of every subsequent reply will create false hits on search engines. If every message includes only the author's text and a minimum of quoting to establish context, the needs of per-message readers, digest readers, and Web archives are all fulfilled pretty damn well.
("I can't help but top-post/full-quote: my mail program puts the cursor at the top of the message by default" is ... well ... I'll be nice and say it isn't terribly convincing. It's right up there with "I can't click that button, I'd go off the edge of my mouse pad.")
Karl A. Krueger wrote:
On Sun, Sep 11, 2005 at 06:24:27PM -0700, Matt Brown wrote:
The problem with top-posting is not so much the top-posting itself, it is what it generally goes along with: copying the entire text of the article being replied to, and not being specific about what you're replying to.
Full-quoting is really annoying for those of us who read mailing lists in digest mode: it means that we have to page through reams of repeated text in order to read the new messages. Since digest mode is a useful and supported feature of the list, it makes sense to discourage people from gratuitously breaking it by full-quoting.
I might add that this was one of the reasons I switched to single-message mode - that and getting several digests in a row where *every single message* was on the same topic. Hurt the eyes and the hip pocket.