[WikiEN-l] Re: [OT] Top posting

Sun Sep 11 15:18:01 UTC 2005

> From: MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com>
>
> What is top posting anyway?

A handy stick with which older netizens can beat newbies.

At some time in the mid-1990s, many people without USENET access  
acquired it. Some USENET oldtimers resented this. One characteristic  
of the newbies was many of them used some piece of software,  
Microsoft Outlook Express perhaps, was configured in such a way that  
by default if you just typed a reply it went at the top of the  
message, above the material to which it was replying.

At about that time, in some newsgroups, people started viciously  
attacking the practice of "top-posting" and asserting that it was bad  
netiquette.

I've participated in USENET since about 1990. At that time, bottom  
posting was the norm but top posting was not at all uncommon. It was  
a matter of personal style and nobody ever commented on it. It is  
simply not true that there was any prohibition on it.

There is an unofficial RFC 1855, e.g. http://www.dtcc.edu/cs/ 
rfc1855.html which is sometime quoted as deprecating top-posting. But  
it is clear from context that the point of the RFC is _primarily_  
concerned with _not_ quoting the the entire original ("It is  
extremely bad form to simply reply to a message by including all the  
previous message: edit out all the irrelevant material"), and the  
fact that it mentions putting the summary at the top seems  
incidental. The actual text is:

"If you are sending a reply to a message or a posting be sure you  
summarize the original at the top of the message, or include just  
enough text of the original to give a context. This will make sure  
readers understand when they start to read your response. Since  
NetNews, especially, is proliferated by distributing the postings  
from one host to another, it is possible to see a response to a  
message before seeing the original. Giving context helps everyone.  
But do not include the entire original!"

It is very much like splitting an infinitive. Don't split infinitives  
if you know your copy will be edited by someone who thinks there's  
something wrong with splitting infinitives. But do know that these  
people have nothing to back themselves up with; even Fowler's English  
Usage sees nothing wrong with it.

Similarly if you are participating in a group that contains people  
that dislike top-posting, don't do it. But don't be gulled into  
believing that there's more here than personal taste.