On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 09:16:21AM -0600, Johne Cook <bio_phy at hotmail.com> wrote: > This is one of those things that appears to me to be a matter of personal > preference, like which way you install your roll of toilet tissue, or if > your blog posts are ascending or descending. It may appear that way to you, but the inline-post style evolved on the early Internet (and systems that predate the internet) as the best way to communicate ideas in a forum where messages do not always arrive, and when they arrive, do not always do so in strictly sequential order (eg, usenet). In other words, this posting style entered common use *for a reason*. Many people now choose to use other styles, such as top posting. They view this as a matter of personal taste, but that is an illusion. In truth, they are almost universally guided towards top posting by their email client, in subtle, nefarious ways that they are not even aware of. Such seemingly minor influences as where the cursor is placed or how the editted message is handled all contribute to this. And what most people who top post do not realize is that these cues are generated by their software, software which first began to interface with the Internet while Microsoft was feeling extremely threatened by the new thing that they didn't understand or handle well. Is it any wonder that Microsoft software encourages this behavior -- behavior that is actively, if unintentionally, hostile to the Internet community? What amazes me is not that Microsoft wrote software to encourage top posting... not that people do it... but that they think it's their own idea. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp