top or bottom

I know we've had this discussion numerous times, but since there are a lot of newbies, I thought I'd open it up again. There are some that answer posts by posting on top and others that wait and post at the bottom of previous posts. Personally, I prefer posting on top, leaving enough of the post being answered to tell what the answer is referring to. If posting on the bottom, some are leaving everything in---often many prior posts. This means scrolling ALL the way down to see the answer, which is occ. "me too". Very frustrating. If posting on the bottom of previous messages, please eliminate some of the earlier ones. Thanks

Reply to
Gen
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Thank you, Gen, for mentioning this problem. I expect the reason so many of us are carrying lots of previous responses is because some are having troubles receiving all of the rctq posts. That does make reading some answers very tedious; can't tell who said what or if they said anything. Quite baffling sometimes. Polly

"Gen" I know we've had this discussion numerous times, but since there are a lot

Reply to
Polly Esther

My email application's "Messages With Auto-Preview" starts reading at the top. So I post at the top.

When I'm in a hurry or have lots of messages to catch up on (like when I return from 5 days without computer access next week), I'm more likely to delete the ones with posts at the bottom. The preview feature makes it much faster for me to move along. I don't need to see the original message first because I can also thread the messages. I can read all in a thread, and I sure don't want to be seeing the original message over and over again. That scrolling to the bottom sometimes takes precious time -- like when I have hundreds of messages to catch up on.

Kay Ahr in NV

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respond to me directly, remove "WESTHI" from the email address

Reply to
Kay Ahr

Heh, probably not the newbies who do it.... it is a long standing practice, a usenet 'tradition' so to speak. And, folks have 'good' reasons for each method.

It all works out to a matter of preference.

Since it can become quite difficult to follow a 'thread' - especially when there are replies to replies - I personally prefer a BOTTOM post, so that I can see just what the person who posted was answering or referring to. If the quotes are numerous, as can happen when two or more folks are replying to each other, then cutting out some of the conversation - with an indication that things were 'snipped', can make it easier to follow.

IMO, top posting often means that I have the 'reply' before the original post - especially as I am prone to browsing some ng's less frequently than others. Depending on your IP and news reader, a post more than a couple days old might not even be shown, meaning you would need to use Google or some other web reader to find the original thread that the 'reply' refers to.

You got me thinking, though. And so I googled a bit and found some opposing opinions.

For those of you who embrace top posting ://

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And, from Wikipedia, this interesting set of questions, for use as a signature A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

Reply to
L

Thanks Polly. I'm one of them. I appreciate the replies at the top with the previous post under it as that's the only way I see some posters. I'm not sure what the deal is with the ISP......been this way ever since I found RCTQ about 11 years ago. It's a Red Letter day if I get 150 posts!

Butterfly (not about to pay extra at this point in time as I really don't know if it'd make any difference)

Reply to
Butterflywings

hells bells, i'll throw yet another spanner into the works by copy/pasting the bottom posters to the top and then replying. i use OE, it is set up to include the whole msg when i reply. the problem is it puts "replyers name" wrote... at the top for the last poster and if they reply at the bottom, the post they are replying to is in the middle, therefore under the "replyers name" now that is very confusing so i move their post up to the top under "replyers name" wrote... gawd, just read thru that and only i'll understand it. i move stuff around from how it shows up for my reply.

i also remove all email addys and isp > Heh, probably not the newbies who do it.... it is a long standing

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Reply to
nzlstar*

Outlook Express automatically starts at the top, so that's why I post at the top. I wouldn't mind bottom posting if people would snip all the extraneous stuff, but they don't - so you end up reading some things over and over. Also, if people would snip the headers and just leave the poster's signature at the bottom of their post it wouldn't get so jumbled. One ng I post to, always bottom posts. You have to wade through so much 'stuff' before you get to the last message, it's ridiculous!

My two cents!

Donna in Idaho

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Reply to
Donna in Idaho

but if you are going to top post, why not just not quote anything at all, how many people do you think read the stuff you left below you response? including it made your message about 6 times as long as it could have been and has my deleting of it caused anyone any problems - probably not, at least not enough to warrant the continual leaving in of all previous posts, then if anyone does want to follow the train of thought in one post, they have to read from the bottom up. The only point in quoting is to give needed context for the reader, the general topic of conversation isn't really needed, it's more to attach answers to specific parts of the post. It isn't really a case of top versus bottom posting, it's more a case of correct quoting, if you only quote exactly what is needed, all the complaints about bottom posting become irrelevant and it become the only logical way to do things.

Cheers Anne

Reply to
Anne Rogers

Reply to
Taria

Jeanne, I have no idea what you said but I always enjoy hearing from you. =) Polly

"nzlstar*" if they reply at the bottom, the post they are replying to is in the middle,

Reply to
Polly Esther

I second the motion!

Reply to
Boca Jan

Reply to
nzlstar*

I agree, Lisa Anne. My own preference is actually for "in-between" posting, which means I tend to intersperse my comments in the body of the original post. I'm also a firm believer in "trimming", as you can see by what I did to your original post. If I don't post in the body of the original message, though, I -- like you -- prefer a bottom post. But I'd also like people to trim where they can.

My own newsreader, MT-NewsWatcher, automatically puts the insertion point for what I write at the bottom of the quote, which works for me. Eudora, which I use for email, does the same.

I think we'll all probably have to agree to disagree on this, since top posters and bottom posters all have preferences, and preferences are hard to justify or change. Still, all of us would probably be happier if we all just trimmed! :)

Reply to
Sandy

Whether tizz on top or bottom I jess read the stuff I wanna, ignore the stuff I don't wanna, glean through the stuff I don't know if I wanna know or don't wanna know and save my worry and frusstratin' for the really big problems like achieving whorled peas, from whence my next chocolate is a coming, if Mizzy Polly is ever gonna Bedazzle her gators and if tattoo ink seeps into the DNA to produce little Druid grandbabies.

Val

Reply to
Val

A reasonable percentage of news/mail software give you the choice of "before" or "after" setting in their preferences so unless you change this, most folk go with the default because they don't know it can be changed [for the most part, depending on software]. OE's default is before whereas Mozilla/Thunderbird is after. I prefer the "before" because when a thread generates a lot of interest you can find yourself scrolling quite some way to find one line of answer to that post. Again, this is personal choice but it doesn't hurt to bring attention to it occasionally. If you do like to post at the bottom of a long thread, then some of the messages above does help both scrolling and bandwidth for that matter. I get a bit lazy posting at the top and don't as much as I should to save the amount of bandwidth to download that message....[50 lashes with a wet tissue across the back of the hand].

Wendy in Nsw

Reply to
wendy.lavender

You might as well give up on my bedazzling the gators. They don't even like to be counted. In 2005, the Marine Bureau estimated their number as 8,500. In 2006, the man who can count never returned; in 2007 nobody even ventured out here. If you ever want to see how fast a mail carrier can move, come watch ours. Polly

"Val" < wrote, in part > save my worry and frusstratin' for the really big

Reply to
Polly Esther

One of the original reasons was amount of data transmitted for those using dial up, so few people still have that, it has become irrelevant, though it may not be for large organisations, or for the telecoms companies, it may not matter down our own individual lines, but add them alltogether and it will result in the need for infrastructure updates and the cost will be passed on to us.

Just in one day, I've read several posts on here that have been top posted where the context wasn't initially clear, whether that be which person they were addressing, or which question there were answering, I've also read some great posts, with the answers interspersed and the previous post selectively quoted.

Cheers Anne

Reply to
Anne Rogers

which merely illustrates the importance of trimming

Anne

Reply to
Anne Rogers

Reply to
nzlstar*

An issue with me is there are a few folks that use the "New Post" button instead of the "Reply Group" button. Not an issue really (although the post doesn't show up as a respond to the original message) except there is no original post to link it to.

Since I use Outlook Express to see RCTQ, my posts are all in outline form. I can also flag the original message if it is something I want to follow and it appears at the top of the posts until I take away the flag.

Soooooo simple.

Reply to
Boca Jan

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