RE: top posting [was: DDOS Protection Services]

Andrew Staples writes:
 > Top posting is so ubiquitous that it has become no more difficult to follow
 > than bottom posting.  Really.  It just isn't that hard to scan up vs down,
 > unless you've become a dinosaur (and yeah, I'm old, so I can say this), or
 > you're an email snob (like wine snobs, they tend towards boorishness).  

Top posting in itself may not make a reply hard to follow, but only if
it is a fairly simple reply.  Unfortunately top posting is frequently
just one of the many lazy habits of a bad writer.  Email is writing, and
writing should always focus on clarity for the reader, not the
convenience of the writer.  Some of the other bad habits include not
trimming superfluous material (your reply, for example, mindlessly
included two extra quoted copies of the list footer which would have
been better removed) and not making an attempt to provide good context
for replies (something that is greatly improved by inline replies, since
you can associate replies to specific parts of a message directly with
those parts).  Also, English text is read top-to-bottom, so forcing the
reader to go backwards through text makes it harder for them.
-- 
Eat sushi frequently. - Avi
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