"Q: Why is top posting bad?" It seems fine to me. After all isn't it logical to simply reply after the last person to have posted. Aren't the last comments that were made 'history' by the time you post your own reply? That is the way it works on forums - it is the way it works when you real many mailing list archives (even if this one appears to have it's own particular customs) - it is the way it works when I send an email to anyone else. You make a statement, someone replies, then you in turn reply to it. You don't make a statement, get a reply, repost the entire contents of that reply above your next reply - and then send this instead. TBH there is too much time being spent on this. Really it is just a matter of preference. I am perfectly able to follow discussions in the way I have described with no difficulty at all. And why shouldn't my preference (or anyone else's) be just as valid as yours? The only time it might be relevant is if you are quoting text (as I did above) and even in English grammar, you don't always respond by requoting everything a commentator says before making your own comment. Anyway as I said, it seems (and probably is) a pretty random preference. An example of this is that a previous poster posted approximately 10 lines of interesting things to say before I had anything relevant to say in return. It looked plumb weird and inefficient making everyone read through 10 lines of comments that they had already read in his original post before being able to read my reply. (Given that all 10 lines were relevant to the single reply I gave). When rules don't make any sense you should certainly disobey (or better still ignore) them. As I have said previously no one's head is going to explode just because I may prefer to lay my text out in a way that is different to what others might prefer. There is no law set in stone anywhere that says your preference is better than mine. The only thing that is bad is having rules like this set in stone - because that is not how language works - and will generally always lead to nonsensical scenarios - of the type that both you and I have alluded to. "Top posting" (which I would suggest is nothing more than a figment of your imagination) can often be just as useful as 'bottom posting. Anyway I will be unsubribing shortly, so you can continue this 'debate' among yourselves. GJ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Christophe Thommeret" <hftom@xxxxxxx> To: <linux-dvb@xxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: "Q" <raid517@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2005 12:05 AM Subject: Re: off-topic, was: Re: [linux-dvb] How to convert DVB video to DVD? Le Mardi 22 Novembre 2005 00:54, Q a ?crit : > Sorry if this is top posting - but it seems silly to me to have to wade > all > the way through a previous poster's text before reading the reply. > > In fact it seems to me that if there is a 'rule' that it is completely the > wrong way round. A: Because it breaks the logical sequence of discussion. Q: Why is top posting bad? -- Christophe Thommeret
