On Thu, July 23, 2015 10:34, Valeri Galtsev wrote:
> Well, my habit for regular e-mail exchange is "top posting" thus the
> person reads my message thus is right to the point why this particular
> message message was sent in a first place... But when mail lists are
> concerned, I do an opposite, that is I follow mail lists conventions.
> I never thought about rationale behind them, I'm just following them.
> I believe, if some day someone gives reasons why top posting is bad
> in case of mail lists it will really be great. The only reason I can
> come up with myself would be: whoever reads message received through
> mail lists usually has no idea about previous exchange in this
> thread, thus needs all exchange in chronological order. Which I'm
> not certain is a good reason, so those who know and insists
> strongly about "no top posting" are encouraged to give others the
> reasons behind that. Again, I'm not "top posting" on the lists.
> However, _this_ ("top posting") is my regular way in private
> exchange (and it has good reasons behind it).
>
It originates from early Usenet practice where it had some useful
purpose given the way Usenet feeds were typically consumed and
forwarded. Generally Usenet News servers maintained posts for a
limited period of time. If you did not connect to obtain the news-feed
within that window then all earlier posts were 'lost' to you. Thus
encapsulating the entire discussion in chronological order in each
reply compensated for the technological (storage) limits prevalent in
the 1980/90s.
The orthodox justification for bottom-posting is often exemplified by
tag lines similar in content to the following:
> Because it makes following the discussion hard.
>> Why is top-posting wrong?
>>> You are top-posting.
>>>> What is wrong with my message?
However, forcing your correspondents to wade through an interminable
wall of text that regurgitates the previous thread before getting to
the point of the message arguably interferes with proper understanding
no less than top-posting does. I am unaware of any scientific study
that purports to support either position. So, in the absence of that
I conclude:
De gustibus non est disputandum.
At this point the practice, particularly for archived mailing lists,
is little more than dogmatic adherence to a style that serves only to
distinguish the 'in group' from the 'other'.
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