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Top posting won because that's what makes sense to most of the world. You're having a conversation with someone. You want to open the latest email and see their

Top posting won because that's what makes sense to most of the world. You're having a conversation with someone. You want to open the latest email and see their response. You don't want to dig through all that other information. I understand that there are a few oddball exceptions. For the vast, vast majority of email exchanges, top posting is more efficient.

saagarjha 7y ago
Of course, decent mail clients should make it so that it doesn't matter either way…
- marcosdumay 7y ago
  And so they did, but the internet grew on the era of non-mature software. Mail clients kept being abandoned before they became decent, while people moved to a new platform.
- einpoklum 7y ago
  That's an interesting, and non-trivial, suggestion. I would love to see mail clients try to figure out, given several raw messages, what the flow of the conversation/thread is like, then offer a canonical representation of that conversation, with perhaps a focus on what a single message contributed to the whole. Or one of several representations, among which the user chooses. That would be quite neat - but like I said, it's not at all easy
  - ColinWright 7y ago
    Yup, that's what my tool does. It wasn't easy, it doesn't always get it right, but it's pretty good, and makes complex email conversations usable, even when people top-post.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
narag 7y ago
Top posting won because that's what makes sense to most of the world. I don't think so. Actually I don't think top posting has "won". What has won is not caring about how you reply and going with what happens when you do nothing. People that top post never looks much at the quotes. They stop reading when they reach the blue lines. They read a couple quoted lines at best. So it's not a question of where you place the quoted text, but a question of if you use quoted text at all.
- bachmeier 7y ago
  What has won is not caring about how you reply That's not what won, it's a description of how people use email. Very few people care about the whole conversation, and when they do, it's at the bottom of a top posted message and inside their email inbox. Email is a work tool. Everything related to bottom posting is a strange hobby.
  - einpoklum 7y ago
    > it's a description of how people are forced to use email There, FTFY.
  - narag 7y ago
    Very few people care about the whole conversation... So the obvious thing to do would be quoting nothing, unless you specifically tell the mail client to include quotes. That would prevent the useless snowballing. Selective quoting is a way to enhance communication by providing context. If you aren't going to bother, there's no reason to include the garbage. When it was a hot topic, there was a very tangible problem for mail lists in which some members were on dial-up in countries with terrible communications. Not trimming quotes was disrespectful to them so most lists had rules about it. Now it seems there is enough bandwidth everywhere, the only issue is that all that quotes are just useless, a cruft from a questionable decision of the authors of Outlook. Everything related to bottom posting is a strange hobby. In my experience, people that has been recently introduced to email are oblivious to quoting styles. The hostility comes from those who ignored the rules of some community and were scolded for it.
globular-toast 7y ago
Why attach all that stuff to the bottom at all then? Anyone who has actually used inline quoting will tell you you never have to "dig through" anything at all. Their reply is there, right at the top. It just might start by quoting your message to provide context.
u801e 7y ago
> Top posting won because that's what makes sense to most of the world. You're having a conversation with someone. You want to open the latest email and see their response. You don't want to dig through all that other information. Then why don't chat clients put new messages at the top of the window instead of at the bottom?

saagarjha 7y ago

Of course, decent mail clients should make it so that it doesn't matter either way…

marcosdumay 7y ago
And so they did, but the internet grew on the era of non-mature software. Mail clients kept being abandoned before they became decent, while people moved to a new platform.
einpoklum 7y ago
That's an interesting, and non-trivial, suggestion. I would love to see mail clients try to figure out, given several raw messages, what the flow of the conversation/thread is like, then offer a canonical representation of that conversation, with perhaps a focus on what a single message contributed to the whole. Or one of several representations, among which the user chooses. That would be quite neat - but like I said, it's not at all easy
- ColinWright 7y ago
  Yup, that's what my tool does. It wasn't easy, it doesn't always get it right, but it's pretty good, and makes complex email conversations usable, even when people top-post.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

narag 7y ago

Top posting won because that's what makes sense to most of the world. I don't think so. Actually I don't think top posting has "won". What has won is not caring about how you reply and going with what happens when you do nothing. People that top post never looks much at the quotes. They stop reading when they reach the blue lines. They read a couple quoted lines at best. So it's not a question of where you place the quoted text, but a question of if you use quoted text at all.

bachmeier 7y ago
What has won is not caring about how you reply That's not what won, it's a description of how people use email. Very few people care about the whole conversation, and when they do, it's at the bottom of a top posted message and inside their email inbox. Email is a work tool. Everything related to bottom posting is a strange hobby.
- einpoklum 7y ago
  > it's a description of how people are forced to use email There, FTFY.
- narag 7y ago
  Very few people care about the whole conversation... So the obvious thing to do would be quoting nothing, unless you specifically tell the mail client to include quotes. That would prevent the useless snowballing. Selective quoting is a way to enhance communication by providing context. If you aren't going to bother, there's no reason to include the garbage. When it was a hot topic, there was a very tangible problem for mail lists in which some members were on dial-up in countries with terrible communications. Not trimming quotes was disrespectful to them so most lists had rules about it. Now it seems there is enough bandwidth everywhere, the only issue is that all that quotes are just useless, a cruft from a questionable decision of the authors of Outlook. Everything related to bottom posting is a strange hobby. In my experience, people that has been recently introduced to email are oblivious to quoting styles. The hostility comes from those who ignored the rules of some community and were scolded for it.

globular-toast 7y ago

Why attach all that stuff to the bottom at all then? Anyone who has actually used inline quoting will tell you you never have to "dig through" anything at all. Their reply is there, right at the top. It just might start by quoting your message to provide context.

u801e 7y ago

> Top posting won because that's what makes sense to most of the world. You're having a conversation with someone. You want to open the latest email and see their response. You don't want to dig through all that other information. Then why don't chat clients put new messages at the top of the window instead of at the bottom?