[WikiEN-l] Re: Top-posting

[Andrew Lih]

Related to this, I think that gmail and other advanced mail programs
have neutralized some of the sin of top posting, because they
intelligently hide the quoted text. However, the diversity of mail
programs now means a wide range of experiences for users (ie. it will
bother some folks immensely, while not bothering others).

For Gmailers, a 115 message thread is manageable, but for others, it
can be extremely aggravating.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)


On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 20:13:36 -0500, Daniel P. B. Smith
<dpbsmith at verizon.net> wrote:
> I've been on USENET since 1989, and nobody ever fussed about
> top-posting until the very late 1990s. People did whatever they chose.
> (People did fuss about not trimming down quoted material from previous
> posts, because bandwidth really was an issue). In the late 1990s
> someone invented some nonexistent netiquette rule about top-posting,
> and people wanting to feel like members of an ingroup began to lambaste
> newbies about it.
> 
> If you do a Google Groups search on "top-posting" from 1981 to 1996 you
> will see that there are only 52 hits and _none_ of them refer to
> top-posting as we know it. The hits are on things like
> "way-over-the-top posting" and "I had been given some kind of top
> posting overseas" and "On our system the FAQ was the top posting."
> 
> In 1997 we start to see entries like "You can get in a lot of trouble
> in the Netscape newsgroups for 'Top Posting'" and "First, please stop
> 'top-posting'." In 1998, "I know some groups prefer 'top' posting, but
> I think they've got it bassackwards, don't you?" There is an exchange
> 
>    > If the quoted text is included at the end of your messages instead
> of
>    > the beginning, it will significantly increase the speed of reading
>    > news.  If you are a fast reader, it might even double it.
> 
>      I had a long argument on this with the folks in the NetScape
> newsgroup
>      a while back. While I agree with your position in general, they
>      argued that it was an issue for `newsgroup standards' (i.e. each
>      newsgroup adopts its own practice).
> 
>      It seems to me that the `core' issue is whether Newsgroup
> circulation
>      is reliable and timely enough so that you usually have the earlier
>      messages to which some response is directed. If you do, then Top
>      posting makes the most sense, while if you do not, Bottom posting
>      wins.
> 
>      As News delivery gets more timely and reliable, we would then expect
>      Top posting to become more and more `the rule'...
> 
> If it originated in the Netscape groups, I don't know why. Maybe, when
> replying to a post, Netscape Communicator's "Collabra" pre-positioned
> the insertion point below the quoted text and perhaps Outlook Express,
> or whatever AOL was using, pre-positioned it at the top? That could
> explain why it became such a bone of contention
> 
> By 2000, the level of discourse has become quite elevated: "Now you
> have all become top-posting fjuckheads with no direction at all" and
> "Oh, here we have a member of the top-posting newbie faggot fan club."
> By 2003, "STOP top posting.  That is WHY YOU ARE retarded.  Got clue?"
> and "Hands up who isn'ta top posting fuckwit" and "Good illustration of
> why top posting is only done by noobs."
> 
> --
> Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net
> "Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
> Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
> Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/
> 
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-- 
Andrew Lih
andrew.lih at gmail.com