On Tue, March 4, 2014 19:00, Kenny Noe wrote: > Mark, > > My apologies for your frustration.... However I don't see a way to > "bottom" post my replies. FYI... I'm using gmail. > > Respectfully --Kenny > > The top-post controversy B.S. is an affectation of the technocratii. Most business correspondence, in other words the vast majority of written communication, uses top post responses because that makes more sense in basic communication between two correspondents. It is hardly surprising then that most business communication software does exactly that. Technical mailing lists members generally prefer bottom posting because it allows casual readers to re-establish often complex contexts in the middle of an exchange when such are interleaved with multiple complex discussion threads. But, the amount of correspondence delivered through mailing lists is vanishingly small when compared to the total volume of written electronic communication. Thus, in the grand scheme of things, I categorise complainants about top posting with the same class of people that want the fork on the right and the knife on the left, or vice versa; in other words, too trivial to matter and not worth bothering about. That said, it does make sense to follow the bottom post convention on mailing list discussions because it does aid readers in following the discussion thread and thus increases the likely hood of a meaningful response. Think of it in terms of a television serial that begins with: Last time on X we left our heroes . . . -- *** E-Mail is NOT a SECURE channel *** James B. Byrne mailto:ByrneJB at Harte-Lyne.ca Harte & Lyne Limited http://www.harte-lyne.ca 9 Brockley Drive vox: +1 905 561 1241 Hamilton, Ontario fax: +1 905 561 0757 Canada L8E 3C3