On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 at 06:47:01 in message
, ShawnD2112
wrote:

That brings up a question you might be able to answer for me. I've never
understood why top posting is seen as such an evil thing. What am I
missing?

Top posting is common in business emails where people like to keep the
whole exchange together. I understand that usage but I feel that in many
cases bottom posting would still make more sense.

But for usenet the discussions or exchanges are more like conversation
and it is logical to put comments after statements and answers after
questions. To me this is natural; I find it difficult to understand why
some people don't agree! :-)

However 'evil' is much too strong; I would prefer 'tiresome'. Of course
this being usenet some people persist in top posting just because other
people don't like it. Others do it on 'principle' because they don't
want to be 'dictated to' or criticised. But no one can force you to do
it, or not do it on usenet.

Repeating lengthy messages just to write a couple of lines at the top is
perhaps even more 'tiresome'. And continuing to do that for reply after
reply so that the quotes get deeper and deeper is even worse.

I try to quote only as much as I need to make it clear what I am
commenting on, and to [snip] the rest indicating where cuts have been
made so that previous messages in the thread can be investigated. I have
not done that here as I consider it unnecessary.

YMMV on any or all of the above.

Cross posting removed.
--
David CL Francis