Klarinet Archive - Posting 000056.txt from 2005/12

From: Tom Flavel <tom@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] re[kl]: Trimming
Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2005 15:26:02 -0500

On 10/12/2005 19:59:34, Matthew Lloyd wrote:
> Why does top posting carry such stigma? It's far more convenient to
> those who are not on a digest.

> Because it's confusing.
> > Why should I not top-post?

Whilst this contrived example may seem silly, on a larger scale, it's
more significant. Why? Because a mailing list reaches multiple people,
not all of whom have been following each conversation in-depth.

For people (like myself) jumping into a conversation midway, it's
difficult to figure out the order of events. Indeed, I just deleted
everything previous to this, because that's easier than attempting to
quote it chronologically.

One reason it gets tricky is because conversational threads fork and
rejoin. English reads top-to-bottom, so it seems natural for paragraph
order to also flow top-to-bottom.

Imagine a book with the paragraphs in a different order to the sentences!

--
Tom

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