On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 19:59:14 -0700, Mike Avery
> wrote:

>Kenneth wrote:
>
>> (I would appreciate it if you would stop the top-posting. It
>> makes it nearly impossible to follow the thread.)
>
>On the contrary, obsessive bottom posting is a far worse offense,
>especially when coupled with a failure to trim text that isn't needed.
>
>Why should someone have to scroll through 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and more
>quoted posts to get to the new text? If someone is a part of a
>conversation, as you clearly are, you should be aware of what others are
>responding to. If not, there are archives of the messages that one can
>refer to, or even to the other messages that arrived in the same package.
>
>I think trimming tails to enough to give the gist of the conversation
>and then replying is far superior to mindlessly replying to an entire
>message which already has too many quotes, and doing so at the bottom of
>that message.
>
>Have mercy on your readers Kenneth!
>Mike
>
>
>--
>Mike Avery
> ICQ: 16241692
> AOL IM: MAvery81230
> Phone: 970-642-0280
>
> * Spam is for lusers who can't get business any other way *

Hi Mike,

Before logging on this morning, I checked my email. There, I
had a note from you, and responded privately because I
assumed that to be what you wanted.

Now, I see you also posted your message here, and so, I
offer the response that I sent to you via email:

Hi Mike,

With regard to the top-posting:

With respect, I disagree (and so, of course, do the vast
majority of people who have for years, and still do, read
Usenet.)

With regard to the trimming, well that's another matter:

Years ago when bandwidth was costly, you would have had a
good case. Today, that is no longer true. Hitting the End
key brings any of us to the most recent contribution to the
message.

In our current situation, there is really no bandwidth cost
issue.

But finally and most importantly, Usenet is a threaded
medium and we were all taught to read top to bottom.

I am sure that you have seen the many humorous attempts to
remind people of this simple fact. My favorite I suppose is:

A: Top-Posting
Q: What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?

So, again with respect, for those of us who are actually
trying to communicate, I believe that the norm of posting at
the end of the thread makes far more sense.

All the best,

--
Kenneth

If you email... Please remove the "SPAMLESS."