[nylug-talk] Top posting

[Brian Gupta]

The reason top posting was originally used is because the email delivery
systems of the day (store and forward with dial up. non-tcp) often suffered
caused messages to be delivered out of order. It was courtesy to the readers
to leave enough or thread to provide context for readers who may have not
yet received the earlier email. In English people read documents form top to
bottom, thus context first, content second.

Over the years, mail delivery systems have improved, such that out of order
delivery is much rarer. In addition, most modern email clients allow the
user to organization emails by thread, obviating the need to quote every
preceding email.

At this point it has become a silly debate, between people who are so used
to the no top posting convention, and people using modern email clients,
that go out of their way to ensure that you top post.

I can understand both, but prefer to read "top posts" myself. (The way I
view it, is that unless someone is answering a bunch of individual points in
an email, with an answer to each point, I'd rather get to the meat of the
communication, than wade through all the context, and find the most recent
stuff at the bottom.

As an example, I have my email viewer configured to show me the latest
messages at the top of the page. I am used to the latest on top metaphor.
(LIFO)

Cheers,
-Brian