"Arg" wrote
| "Dave" wrote
| Can someone explain why "bottom posting" is considered better
| than "top posting"...
| I''m with you. I like top posters as it makes it faster to read and
| therefore more likely to comment on the return posting.
| THis is becuase of Outlook Express showing a tree of messages such
| that you can read the original easily.

But that doesn't always happen - I use OE and the original is often not
directly above the reply. In fact it may have got expired off my system or
the ISP newsserver or may even not have been received by my or the ISP
because of imperfect propagation. The original may not be visible on
Googlegroups or other archives if it's been X-No-Archive'd. Dealing with
over 500 new postings a day means I might not even remember reading the
original.

My OE displays about the first 20-24 lines of a posting without scrolling. I
expect to be able to get the gist of a posting, including preceding
discussion, within the first 20 lines. Anything more shows the writer isn't
quoting properly.

Interleaving quote / response, quote / response makes terse responses to
quoted text possible without duplication whilst maintaining comprehension.

And I find I can read messages very quickly on OE with one hand on the arrow
key to move between unread postings and another hand on the wheelmouse to
scroll within a posting. Having the attributions / references at the very
top also makes it quick to pick out responses to my own postings.

Owain