Fred Atkinson <fatkinson@mishmash.com> writes:

> I hate bottom posting with a passion. I only do it to get
> along with others. It's a pain in the neck.

That's a false dichotomy. Top-posting and bottom-posting are both bad.

As already pointed out, top-posting is bad because it breaks the flow
of normal discussion. We read chronologically top-to-bottom, so your
reply should follow what you're replying to.

But bottom-posting implies the other problem that's been referred to:
failing to trim the quoted material. Usually your reply will be
relevant only to a subset of the original to which you're replying, so
it's annoying to let that quoted material build up and up in a thread.

The preferred style is "trimmed quote, inline posting": remove
anything from the original not relevant to your reply (leave the
attribution lines so we can still see who wrote which part), and place
your reply inline with the part of the original you're responding to.

That way there's enough context without it being obnoxious, and the
message reads chronologically.

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Ben Finney