Olin Lathrop wrote:

>> So as long as enough context is provided so that the reply is coherent,
>> then reasonable people will have no problem with top-posting.
> 
> It's not just about providing context, but also the ease of access to that
> context.  

I guess that's really what it boils down to. It's not about top or bottom
or whatever "posting style", it is about the work that is required to:

- think what it is exactly that you are responding to,
- copy that out of the original or move your cursor there, depending on
your mail reader,
- put that all together into an easy to read message, that provides the
relevant (and only the relevant) context from prior messages to your
comment.

Once you do that, you'll notice that you don't top post, you don't bottom
post, you just plain post easy to read messages. 


> Reading a top posted reply can be annoying because you have to scoll
> around a lot to figure out the context.

IMO the thing with top posting is that if the poster did provide the
relevant context within his comments, the appended prior message(s) are not
relevant anymore and should have been deleted. Which would have made the
post not being a top post... and which also, reversing the logic, means
that in a top post the context was either not provided where it was needed
or unnecessary context was sent.

IMO the thing with what's generally called bottom posting is that this is a
complete misnomer, not helpful at all for a discussion about its virtues.


And Olin wrote also in a different message:

> I would love to see the list server reject messages that end with one of
> the footers the list server automatically adds.  

Or that contain the footer... I'd like to suggest this idea for some sort
of award :)

Gerhard

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