Bottom Posting (was In Support of My Prince Harry Theory)

[Steve]

---  "Geoff Bannister" <gbannister10 at ...> wrote:
>
> ---  "Teri Gardner" <malra@> wrote:
>  
> Teri:
> It's an alien posting style to me, to be honest, since I work
> at a law firm where absolutely nobody does bottom posting, so
> I understand the resistence to it.  ...
> > 
> > I don't even use it normally in my usual correspondence ...
> > 
> 
> Geoff:
> Curious, isn't it?
> 
> I belong to several groups where bottom posting is the 
> accepted norm.
> 
> Outside that, I find top posting alien. I do quite a lot of 
> emailing in .. my church ... pretty well everyone uses bottom 
> posting.
> 
> .. it ...seems logical to keep ... chronological 
> order.
> 
> C'est la vie.
>

bboyminn:

Likely most of the Top-Posting you are doing is in email and
most often only with one other person, though others may be 
copied on the email.

In that case, top posting is fine, because the other person
already knows what he said, and if he needs to check a point,
he can simply scroll down to his previous email.

In this and similar groups though, a single thread many be 
a conversation between a dozen people, and some of those 
people might be off on a side tangent. So it is important to 
establish immediately who and what you are responding to, 
otherwise, your response come without context.

Which brings us to the next point - Snipping. If we are 
involved in a thread, then likely just a quick short reference
at the top is enough to establish a framework for the post
that follows. 

If you look at Teri and Geof's posts above, though neither one
was all that long, you can see I have distilled them down to 
their core essence. That 'essence's is all that is necessary
to establish a frame of reference.

So, again, keep in mind that a given thread is actually a 
conversation between many people, and may actually have 
tangential sub-conversation within it. For your post to make
sense, you have to immediately establish a context for your
comments, and to do that, we first need to see who and what
you are referring to. 

Many times, I'll be making a comment to a subject in general
rather than a specific person, so I don't quote anyone. 
Invariable the first responding post will ask 'who are you 
responding to?'.

So, in one-on-one email, bottom posting really isn't necessary,
but in complex diverse conversations, establishing a frame of
reference for your response is a must.

Hey...I'm just saying...

Steve/bboyminn