Steve Atkins <steve@blighty.com> writes:
> In the business world it's common to top-post and not cut previous
> content
> - and often appropriate, as it tends to be a communication between a
> smaller number of people, and the uncut content provides context for
> future reference.
> Those who rant about anyone who top posts, or state that you should
> never top-post are mostly clueless or arrogant, or are making over-broad
> generalizations.
Sure, there are contexts where that makes sense. On the PostgreSQL
lists, however, you are writing for the archives as much as for the
immediate readers (and if you don't understand that, *that* is the first
thing you need to learn). The in-line, trimmed-quotations style is a
lot easier to read when looking through a thread in the archives.
Another advantage is that trimming quoted text reduces the number of
useless matches when searching the archives.
In short: this is the community consensus on how to post, there are
good reasons for it, and we need to try to educate newbies in it.
Not just say "it's okay to ignore the conventions".
regards, tom lane