[Tfug] Netiquette police: top-posting

[amperry at provide.net]

On Thu, 3 Nov 2005 14:03:51 -0500
 Nathanial Hendler <equant at retards.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 03, 2005 at 11:32:15AM -0700, Claude Rubinson
> wrote:
> > Not directed at anyone in particular but there's been a
> rash of people
> > top-posting lately.  It's really annoying.  

> Interesting, I didn't know this bothered anyone else.

> If most people
> expect newer comments to be at the top of an email,
> perhaps putting new
> comments below is just as annoying to them.

I believe the critical difference is between emails sent
back and forth between individuals or small groups, and
those sent to mailing lists. People tend to be more "in the
loop" when it's only one-to-one or one-to-few, so the
important thing is to get to the new stuff first.

In a mailing list or newsgroup, you can't assume anyone is
in the loop--in fact, you are all but guaranteed that some
interested party *isn't*, and has just joined the
conversation, so context is all-important there.

This is why, IMHO, setting an editor preference isn't an
ideal solution, unless you've got a context-sensitive
setting or can change settings at the flip of a switch.

Just my thoughts.