Why is top posting so unpopular? I think that especially in long threads
with dozens of posts, that it is a pain in the ass to have to scroll through
the same initial post and all previous responses
for each message in the thread. Or am I missing something?
Flame away!
You asked for it. I posted this yesterday in another newsgroup in response
to the same question:
Instead of trimming the previous post down to only the relevant parts, you
intend to dribble forth a bloated top-posted article that includes each
previous article in its entirety.
We're talking about custom here, not morality. But just as an exercise,
let's try applying the universal law formulation of Kant's categorical
imperative to your actions. It this is too complicated for you, refer to
the children's book _If Everybody Did_, by Jo Ann Stover.
If everybody top-posted, including entire previous articles, each article
would include the entirety of the thread to date, along the particular
route taken to that article. The fiftieth article in a thread would
contain 49 previous articles. A linear thread, with no branches, would
expand in storage size (in megabytes) as one-half the square of the number
of articles, so that a thread of 100 articles would require storage space
for 5,000. The actual expansion would be less because of branching, but
don't forget that threads can go on for more than 100 articles.
News spools would fill up and crash, articles would disappear before they
appeared, and new threads would be choked off. Those who still download
articles over a phone line would be unable to download these articles,
with their vanishingly-small fraction of new, unduplicated content, as fast
as they appeared, if they appeared at all. Usenet would cease to function
with its current carrying capacity. Consequently, a rational being would
not want a top-posting, all-inclusive posting style to become a universal
norm. The very existence of threaded newsreaders and the availability of
past articles on news spools indicates that such a scheme has been weighed
in the balance and found wanting.
When you start at the top, you should start trimming text until you come to
something relevant that you wish to address, reply to, or expand on. Then
move your cursor below that, text, hit "enter" to leave a blank line, then
start typing. Leave blank lines between paragraphs, and after your text
before you (delete irrelevant material and) include another point to be
addressed. Lather, rinse, repeat.
This is what we find most readable. For you to tell us that we should
alter our reading habits to suit your posting style (presumably, to be
bopping back and forth between new and included old text) is just plain
rude.
You are welcome to your opinions as to what is efficient in posting, but
you are not welcome to act on them here, and you are especially not welcome
to pretend that your opinions are as good as anyone else's. You think of
yourself as an individualist, standing up for your opinions in the face of
the stodgy old fuddy-duddies that infest this group. You may even feel
that your way of thinking will provide a breath of fresh air for those who
choose to inhale it. But what you're really doing is farting on the
elevator and haughtily informing the other passengers that you're free to
do so, that you intend to laugh at their expressions of distaste, and that
they really ought to be enjoying your contributions anyway.
What you have failed to realize it that you have stumbled into a community,
and that communities have standards and traditions. These don't have to
make sense to you, but you do have to be aware that you, having no standing
in the community, are unlikely to drop in and change these traditions
instantly because it suits you to do so. You are free to tell us that you
want to top-post and fail to trim your followups. You are free to go to
an Orthodox synagogue and tell the worshippers coming out of a service
that they really should be following Jeezus and enjoying a nice slice of
Easter ham. You are free to partake of a traditional meal in an Arab
country and eat from the common food bowl with your left hand (the
traditional butt-wiping hand) and brush off any polite hints or
instructions to the contrary. You are free to go to Paris, Munich, Tokyo,
Madrid, or Rome and accost random locals in English, making no attempt to
speak even a broken version of their own language, but instead affecting an
attitude that makes it clear that you think it their duty to undertake
years of language study so that they may assist you with no undue
inconvenience to yourself.
In all of these, you would have the same effect: you would mark yourself
as an ignorant, selfish, self-absorbed boor who thinks that everyone,
everywhere should adapt themselves to suit your own childish whims. You
see, we care to a finite extent about top-posting. But some people care a
great deal more about dispensing with morons who have neither the common
sense nor the common courtesy to fit in with local custom, and top-posting
provides a convenient moron detector. The custom itself is of minor
importance, but, dispensing with morons is both a critical activity and a
pleasant diversion.
HTH.
