On 7/23/2015 12:15 PM, m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote: > Leon Fauster wrote: >> Am 23.07.2015 um 18:06 schrieb "Valeri Galtsev" >> <galtsev at kicp.uchicago.edu>: >>> On Thu, July 23, 2015 10:45 am, Johnny Hughes wrote: >>>> The main reason actually is chronological order. But not just for the >>>> reply .. but for IN-LINE posting. >>>> >>>> In a discussion where you need to make points in-line and where you >>>> only need some of and not all of the other posts, something that >>>> happens frequently on mailing lists, it is very much easier to read >>>> that type of collaborated message in chronological order. >>>> >>>> I mean, you don't read a book or a newspaper article or a blog post >>>> from bottom to top, right? Why would you read communications from >>>> bottom to top? And it is not really even bottom to top. If >>>> you take 4 emails of 10 lines each (and 40 lines total) .. it >>>> is 75% down to 100% (original mail)... then up to 50% and read >>>> down to 75% (2nd mail), then up to 25% and read down to 50%, then >>>> up to 0% and read down to 25%. What if someone made you read blog >>>> posts that way, or books or newspaper articles? >>> OK, the shortest I can re-formulate your message is: on mail lists we >>> are collectively writing the book for someone else to read (much less >>> communicating with each other in real time ;-) Any accepted convention >>> is better than no convention: save everybody's time. Suits me (as >>> far as mail lists are concerned). >> I consider email as an asynchronous communication, >> therefore "book style convention" is recommended. > Yup. We're writing electronic *mail*, not text messages (here, you've got > 140 char, tell me everything you know....), and you don't have a two-line > pager screen.... I see it as a slo-mo group conversation, and top-posting > is like the person who suddenly utters a nonsequitur, louder than everyone > else is speaking.... > > mark > > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos > Add to the above that on every phone I've ever used, new texts appear below older ones (no top posting there either). -chuck --