In article ,
mike wrote:
On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 14:23:02 +0000, Airy R.Bean wrote:
Conventions are not rules - if they were to be so, then everyone,
including you, would follow the convention of top-posting.

RFC 1855 - Netiquette Guidelines

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1855.html

- If you are sending a reply to a message or a posting be sure you
summarize the original at the top of the message, or include just
enough text of the original to give a context. This will make
sure readers understand when they start to read your response.
Since NetNews, especially, is proliferated by distributing the
postings from one host to another, it is possible to see a
response to a message before seeing the original. Giving context
helps everyone. But do not include the entire original!

It's just a guide - the rest of it is worth reading too....

That's correct.

The convention on USENET, and on ARPANET mailing lists such as
"info-mac" (the first I ever read), has long been one of "quote the
material you are responding to, and put your response after it".
That's been the case since at least 1980, and I believe that it dates
back even further than that - probably to the first Unix email systems
and likely back to the days of email on PDP-11s and
TOPS-10/TOPS-20/TENEX systems. In other words, it's a deeply rooted
Internet tradition.

I believe this tradition is probably derived from older written-English
traditions, such as the "letters to the editor" tradition in which a
writer's letter would be printed in whole or part, and an editor's
responses to the points made therein being printed after, or
interspersed with the letter. I've never seen an editor's rejoinders
printed *before* the letter writer's text.

Footnotes and other clarifying comments inserted by a book's editor
are likewise printed beneath the text to which they refer.

On the Internet, the use of "top posting" is a much more recent
phenomenon. It seems to date to the first arrival of Internet-capable
email software authored by Microsoft, a company whom many seem to feel
takes delight in ignoring prevailing standards.

One might say that the Internet's "gentleman's tradition" (no
disrespect to the ladies being intended by the use of that phrase) is
one of interspersed or "bottom" posting, and that those who understand
the Internet technical culture and who value "gentlemanly" behavior
would choose to respect that tradition.

In an absolute sense, one can argue that neither top nor bottom
posting is inherently superior. Howeve, bottom/interspersed posting
"got here first" and has been part of Internet tradition for longer
than there has been an Internet (big "I").

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Hosting the Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!