Alan,
     You have to go back to the late 70s and early 80s during the time=20
of the BBSs, CompuServe, AOL, and news servers. It was agreed to place=20
replies at the top of messages so that people did not have to scroll=20
through the whole message to read a reply. This was by convention=20
carried over to email and other services that handled messages and their=20
replies. The person doing the replying should put in enough references=20
to the message so that someone who is reading a reply doesn't have to=20
refer to the message to understand what is going on. Someone who is=20
reading a reply can refer back to the message that is being replied to=20
if they desire more details.
     In business an email can get very long as all of the email is=20
always retained so as to give a running tabulation of the whole=20
conversation. This is done so that there is no misunderstanding about=20
how the conversation proceeded. All of the information was retained. As=20
you can see it would become very tiresome to scroll to the bottom of a=20
message to read a reply and then to add another reply. This also served=20
as an auditing tool. That was the primary reason that it was agreed to=20
put the replies at the top of the message.
      It isn't as big a deal with what we are doing here as the message=20
is being continually edited so as to control the length of the message.=20
Of course if someone comes in late on the conversation they will have to=20
go back to the start of the thread to be able to know what is going on.=20
I hope this helps to explain it.
Thanks,
rich!
David,
     I hope that this helps you also. Yes, placing a reply in the middle=20
can be helpful but that is the key about whether or not to place the=20
reply at the top or in the middle. Is it appropriate?? If it does work=20
better by putting the reply in the middle then the reply should be=20
placed at the top of the section of message that is being referred to.
Thanks,
rich!

On 6/16/2014 8:23 AM, alan.b.pearce@stfc.ac.uk wrote:
>> Doing both would appease all?
>> Where is the "like"  button?
>>
>>> My solution to the top vs. Bottom decision is really quite simple.
>>> I just avoid posting at all.
>>>
>> Doing both would appease all?
>> Where is the "like"  button?
> <VBG>
>
> I also don't know where the 'rules' originally quoted reside.

--=20
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