On Tue, 2019-01-15 at 00:24 -0500, bzs@theworld.com wrote:
I'd like to go on record as saying that I PREFER top-posting.
Why dig through what you've already read to see the new comments?
Because in long discussion threads, you lose the context to exactly what a particular person is replying to/about. When they answer inline (or bottom posting if there is just one thing to say) you get the context as to what they are talking about.
Actually in an ideal world previous included bits would be links which could optionally be expanded via one shared remote copy but lo I wander.
Right. So you are actually advocating for inline/bottom-posting with appropriate trimming and the added benefit of being able to collapse the trimmed quote. That could very well and easily be an MUA feature. But you started your message by saying you prefer top posting.
You should try some of the internet governance (I know, oxymoron) lists where people will inline a megabyte of discussion to add just "+1!" or "I agree!" or "congrats!" in the middle or bottom. It's like Alice's Restaurant.
That's a different problem that IMHO, top posting actually perpetuates: lack of trimming. Top posting makes it too easy to send along the entire copies of all of the messages that previous top-posters posted and didn't trim. When you encourage inline replying or bottom posting, it seems to point out, only if slightly more, than one could trim the useless content as one goes by it to inline/bottom post. Cheers, b.