Re: bottom / top posting

Sam Gendler <sgendler(at)ideasculptor(dot)com> writes:
> It's not so much that it is rude in the way of typing in all-caps, it's
> more that it leads to endlessly long chains of quoted posts below the
> relevant content,

It's really critical to understand that bottom-posting also requires
heavy trimming of how much of the previous message(s) you quote.
I despair of the number of people on these lists who think that
bottom-posting etiquette means "quote the entire thread up to this
point and then add a couple lines at the bottom". The function of
quoting is to *briefly* remind readers of what you're responding to.
If they need more detail, they can go back to the prior messages, or
consult the list archives. They definitely don't want to re-read
the whole thread before they see your contribution.

> It
> could probably be argued that the prohibition was more relevant in the days
> before 99% of users read their email via clients which hide quoted content
> unless it is explicitly expanded.

Yeah, gmail is aggressively unfriendly for this purpose. But if you
can't be bothered to trim your quotes, I'd actually much rather that
you top-post.

regards, tom lane