Well I'm sorry you think I'm lazy Dave, but make no apology for top posting.
It's the generally accepted norm now in most groups I subscribe to (like
you, over 20), and makes absolute sense when using a newsreader (no, not
just Outlook Express):

- The context is not required, because the thread structure can be followed
perfectly easily using the message list. It's good manners to leave it in
the message, in case your reply is downloaded from a server that hasn't kept
the old messages, but expecting that everyone wants to read the whole thread
in every reply, especially if they have to scroll past it all to get to the
new bit, is just silly.

- Top posting doesn't remove the context; it's still there if you need it,
but it does allow people to see the reply they're likely to be looking for
first. In fact top posting allows you to leave the ENTIRE context in place,
whereas most bottom posters delete everything except the message they're
replying to. What if someone needs to see the message three up to make sense
of your reply? Bottom posters remove far more information than top posters
do.

- If you search on Google groups or just about any other web interface,
you'll see the first few lines of a message in the results summary. Bottom
posting destroys the usefulness of that completely.

- If you have a slow connection (less and less do now on desktops, but more
and more do on mobile devices), one standard way to save bandwidth is to
limit each message to X kb, which truncates the message after a few lines.
Bottom posting forces everyone to download the whole message.

- Bottom posting and interleaving, or inline replies, are not the same
thing. Interleaving is used where you want to give separate replies to
several points, and is the only logical way to do it, in personal e-mails,
newsposts, web forums and e-mail lists.

Just like £120 cables vs. bell wire, classical vs. pop, vinyl vs. CD, active
vs. passive, MS vs. Apple and Pocket PC vs. Palm, there are two schools of
thought, and neither is likely to convince the other. Therefore I'll live
with your waste of space/bandwidth and inconsiderate demands that I scroll
far more than necessary, if you'll refrain from calling people you don't
know lazy.

Mark

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Mark R Penn wrote:
No it isn't. I can see that in this group, the majority bottom post, but
in most others it's considered old fashioned and bad manners nowadays.

Strange. I read some 20 newsgroups and subscribe to half a dozen e-mail
lists. And it's only the lazy who can't be bothered to trim that top post
because that's how OE is set up to 'work'. And this applies to both the UK
and US.

Private e-mails are a totally different matter - you'd be expected to
remember the discussion. So previous mail(s) are only quoted for
reference.

Newsgroups are a different matter completely. Many posts will be replied
to commenting on various points. So it makes sense to interleave and put
your comment below the OP one so it makes some sense. If you accept this
then top posting where this isn't needed makes no sense whatsoever.

--
*A day without sunshine is like... night.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.