The official position of the PICList is that you can post top or bottom but please: 1. Trim the post you are replying to. 2. Change the topic tag (and the subject) when you change the subject. 3. If you don't like something that someone did or said, complain OFF - FREAKING - LIST!!! NOT. ON. THE. (*@#$)(%)! LIST. Was that clear enough? Send an email to me or directly to the person, NOT to the list. Name calling, personal insults, etc.. Will get you kicked off the list. We also don't allow religious discussion in the sense that we will not discuss the "unknowable" or hash over matters of opinion that can not be proven one way or the other. In this thread, there have been some good points on both sides. Olin explained how to bottom post with OE, (nice, thank you Olin) and others have pointed out how maintaining the order of reading and including enough of the prior post to set the context is a valuable attribute of bottom posting. Others have pointed out how top posting is easier and that it is up to the person posting to compose the best message they can. As someone reading the post, as soon as you see that it is a top post, you can simply choose to ignore it. Let others deal with the pain. If you don't like top posting, just skip it and go on. No need to be rude, no need to go on and on. Just let it go. One member has been removed because of this topic being taken as religion and getting to the level of personal insults. --- James Newton: PICList webmaster/Admin mailto:jamesnewton@piclist.com 1-619-652-0593 phone http://www.piclist.com/member/JMN-EFP-786 PIC/PICList FAQ: http://www.piclist.com > -----Original Message----- > From: piclist-bounces@mit.edu > [mailto:piclist-bounces@mit.edu] On Behalf Of Xiaofan Chen > Sent: 2005 Nov 25, Fri 03:57 > To: Microcontroller discussion list - Public. > Subject: Re: [OT] Top-posting, is it really that bad? > > I think Wikipedia does a good job here. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-posting > > Regards, > Xiaofan > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-posting > > Usage > Unsurprisingly, different online communities differ on > whether or not top posting is objectionable; but if it is > found objectionable in a particular community, top-posting in > that community will generally be seen as major breach of > etiquette and will provoke particularly vehement responses > from self-named community regulars. > > Objections to top-posting, as a general rule, seem to come > from persons who first went online in the earlier days of > Usenet, and in communities that date to Usenet's early days. > Among the most vehement communities are those in the Usenet > comp.lang hierarchy, especially comp.lang.c and > comp.lang.c++. Etiquette is looser (as is almost > everything) in the alt hierarchy. Newer online participants, > especially those with limited experience of Usenet, tend as a > general rule, to be less sensitive to top-posting, and tend > to reject any argument against top-posting as irrelevant. A > typical contrarian view holds that their software top-posts > and they like it. > > It may be that users used to older, terminal-oriented > software which was unable to easily show references to posts > being replied to, learned to prefer the summary that not > top-posting gives; it is also likely that the general slower > propagation times of the original Usenet groups made that > summary a useful reminder of older posts. As news and mail > readers have become more capable, and as propagation times > have grown shorter, newer users may find top-posting more efficient. > > Microsoft has had a significant influence on top-posting by > the ubiquity of its software; its email and newsreader > software top-posts by default, and in several cases makes it > difficult not to top-post; many users apparently have > accepted Microsoft's default as a de facto standard. > > Perhaps because of Microsoft's influence, top-posting is more > common on mailing lists and in personal email. Top-posting is > viewed as seriously destructive to mailing-list digests, > where multiple levels of top-posting are difficult to skip. > It is, moreover, nearly irresistible to post an entire digest > back to the mailing list, then top-post a reply to that message. > > Finally, top-posting is simply a custom, like wearing > neckties or eating with one's right hand, that serves to > identify one's membership in a particular community. This > self-identification function probably serves as much as any > other factor to reinforce its use: one can not expect much > help in comp.lang.c++ if one self-identifies as a "barbarian" > by top-posting. In this way, not top-posting is similar to > other customs employed by other communities: the Unix > community; the various programmer "cultures"; the "New > Jersey/Bell Labs", the "MIT/Cambridge", or the "West > Coast/Berkeley" "communities"; the AOL "community". > > -- > http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change > your membership options at > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist > -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist