Dave wrote:

Can someone explain why "bottom posting" is considered better than "top
posting"...

Now you've gone and done it...Hope you're proud of the monster
thread you've spawned.

It's not about top v. bottom, it's about top v. *context* posting.


I far prefer posts at the top, simply because the new information can be
read easily and then, if it looks interesting, I can scroll through the
history if I haven't been following the thread.

But how, then, does one reply to several different points in a
post while still making sense?


If people post at the
bottom I frequently don't bother scrolling down to read it.

Your loss/problem.


Posting at
the bottom would be OK if people didn't insist on quoting all that's
gone before.

And people shouldn't quote all that's gone before - unless
there's no other way of putting their point across.


Also, why do some people get so worked up about it? Does it cause
problems with some news readers?

Bottom posting is lazy, selfish, makes the thread impossible to
follow, and from an archival point of view (do you use
groups.google.com?) is extremely destructive.


- it seems OK with Outlook Express and
that's freely available.

Well then you just keep using OE and top posting.

Some light reading:

http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?How_to_post
http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote2.html
http://www.caliburn.nl/topposting.html
http://www.dickalba.demon.co.uk/usen.../faq_topp.html

--
Grunff