Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

[Steven Champeon <schampeo AT hesketh.com>]

That's silly.

OK, now go down and read what I think is silly. You may have to scroll
quite a bit, if you haven't been paying attention, or if the original post
was very long, or contained many points. 

Is it the bit where you say that "top posting is the right way to do it"?

Or is it the bit where you claim you don't have to re-read the original
post? Or perhaps a commentary on the fact that you don't have to unless
you need to?

Or maybe I'm talking about the idea of half a conversation being there for
"optional reference", like the liner notes to a Bob Newhart album.

Actually, what I'm referring to is the idea of quoted text, the part of
the conversation to which you are directly responding, being in any way 
a cause of interference to the "point of the post". Though, to be frank,
I think those who prefer top posting aren't really interested in having a
conversation so much as getting their word in. Besides, it's easier not
to have to deal with other people's conversation, right?

But you'd never know it from this top-post. So, let's see how we'd handle
this more intelligently, with little risk of confusion:

on Wed, May 28, 2003 at 09:02:51AM -0400, Maria Winslow wrote:
> By the way, not to pick a fight, but I think top posting is the right
> way to do it.

That's silly. The right way to do what? Inject an opinion without worry
of having to deal with an actual conversation? Waste a post by making an
oblique reference to something not clearly identified, and then weigh it
down with possibly an entire thread's worth of posts, including all of the
various .sigs and list footers, sometimes several copies' worth? Nah.

> That way, you don't have to re-read the original post unless you need 
> to.

That's even sillier. Why would you not want to read half of a
conversation? Unless, of course, you're not interested in having a
conversation. Or helping further comprehension. If you don't want to
include the whole thing for fear of confusion, trim out only the bits to
which you're replying. If you don't think it's necessary to interweave
your points with the statements of others because everyone should be
following along anyway, then why bother including the body of the post(s)
to which you're replying? The reader can always refer back to the copies
of those posts in the archive, right? Bah.

> So the quoted text is there for optional reference, and shouldn't 
> interfere with quickly getting the point of the post.

I don't see why you'd think that half of a conversation is "optional",
unless you're a big fan of Bob Newhart's old comedy albums (cf.
"Baseball") and think that reading entire conversations as
half-monologues with little context is a rich form of communication.

Steve

-- 
hesketh.com/inc. v: (919) 834-2552 f: (919) 834-2554 w: http://hesketh.com
Book publishing is second only to furniture delivery in slowness. -b. schneier