Re: top posting (was: Hijack!)

On Tue, Dec 11, 2007 at 09:00:05AM -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
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> On Tue, 11 Dec 2007 11:49:54 -0500
> Andrew Sullivan <ajs@crankycanuck.ca> wrote:
>
> > On a mailing list, perhaps one can argue that the conventions simply
> > have to be followed.  But I know I find it pretty annoying to get 36
> > lines of quoted text followed by something like, "No: see the manual,
> > section x.y.z."
>
> That is what <snip> is for :)
>
> >
> > I don't think top posting is always the crime it's made to be (and I
> > get a little tired of lectures to others about it on these lists).
> >
>
> I can appreciate that but regardless of various "opinions" (mine
> included). It is the PostgreSQL communities decision and I believe
> except for newbies and a few long timers who should know better,
> everyone avoids top posting.
>
> Top posting makes it hard to read.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Joshua D. Drake

Simply replying to an argument with an assertion to the contrary is, I
think, dogmatism.  The argument for top posting is that it is _easier_ to
read for certain kinds of cases.  I have already rehearsed those arguments;
I think they are both sound and valid, but they don't consider every
situation, and so they also lead to a wrong conclusion sometimes.

I would argue that this message is harder to read than if I'd just replied
at the top.  It's pointlessly long -- but without including everything, you
wouldn't have all the context, and you might have missed something.  (The
context argument is, of course, the usual one favoured by
call-and-response/"bottom posting" advocates.  So, your context is above.)

As for the "snip" claim, it has several problems:

1.    It is easy, by injudicious, careless, or malicious use of cutting
from others' posts, to change the main focus of their argument, and thereby
draw the thread in a completely new direction.

2.    Owing to (1), snipping is a favourite tactic of trollers.

3.    Owing to (1), snipping is a favourite target for cranks, who
immediately turn such threads into long _ad hominems_ about the malicious
slurs being heaped on them by others.

4.    Poor editors often obscure enough in their editing that they provide
no more elucidation than nothing, and rather less than there might be with a
top-posted response and a complete copy of the earlier message below it.

I can, of course, produce equally good arguments for not top posting.  My
point is not that we should change the convention; but rather, that we
should accept that this is a convention and nothing more.  It makes reading
easier for you because it's the convention with which you're familiar.  If
you were used to the alternative, you'd find this convention annoying and
pointlessly noisy.

I think it's worthwhile putting a note in the welcome-to-new-subscribers
that this community doesn't like top posting, and that top posting may well
cause your messages to be ignored.  Those claims are both true, and we don't
need to justify it with jumped-up claims about the objective superiority of
one method over another.  I think we should also avoid being too doctrinaire
about it.

A