Re: [Hampshire] Benefits of top-posting?

On Fri, Nov 23, 2007 at 11:08:25AM +0000, Dr Adam J Trickett wrote:
> Everyone at work top posts and it drives me mad trying to figure
> out what they are saying on complex emails, but everyone also says
> it's the norm, and question why I bottom post.
>
> I can see the following:
> * It's easy for short answers where you are answering to the subject
> line, and there is pretty much no content.
> * It's lazy/easy because it's the default behaviour of Lookout.
> * Everyone else does it: it's the convention.
>
> However I can't really see the point as it stands. The people who like
> to top-post what is the benefit to you, why do you do it?

I really try to avoid it, even at work. Most of the time I do avoid it, but
when I'm being asked to respond to a long-ish thread, it's not worth the time
to reformat it all.

I pretty much agree with the three reasons you've given above, but perhaps
there's a fourth. Some people don't know how to mentally parse non-top-posted
e-mails. In a previous job I sent an e-mail to someone and was copied in on a
reply that showed she had forwarded my mail on to her boss with a complaint
that I hadn't replied "properly" and had included comments "throughout my
e-mail" and that she "didn't know how to reply". Sure there's an element of
familiarity and training that caused such a situation and it's the only time
I've had a complaint about non-top-posting. Most people /do/ seem to parse
non-top-posting correctly, even if it's not their preferred style.

Tony