[scribus] scribus Digest, Vol 33, Issue 15 Message 7 Re: 1.3.9 debian builds? and top-posting

[Nicholas Newman]

On 05 Dec 2010, at 00:17, scribus-request at lists.scribus.net wrote:

> On 12/04/2010 02:21 PM, ehud.kaplan at gmail.com wrote:
>> What does top post mean?  I use Thunderbird as a front end for gmail and
>> clicked on Reply-list.
>> EK
>> 
>> On 12/4/2010 3:53 PM, Peter Linnell wrote:
>>> Hi,
> 
> Top posting is when you put your reply above the original text, as you 
> did above.  It's considered bad manners by most people because it means 
> that you read everything in reverse chronological order.  I'm guessing 
> that Outlook and other Winderz email programs work that way because 
> dead-tree files are always done that way and office workers are used to 
> reading things backwards.
> 
> 

Actually top-posting merely assumes that as a diligent follower of files and events one is already familiar with what has gone before, and does not need to re-familiarise oneself with everything that has been written before.
Thus one may as well just read the latest posting, at the top.
However when one is dealing with more than say 20 or 30 things at the same time and new installments come only after a few days, bottom-posting can seem like a good idea because one has the entire history in front of one in chronological order, rather like being able to read the entire history of laws in England, starting perhaps a bit late with Magna Carta, before ploughing through the rest and getting to the latest one.
However as both arguments can apply to both top and bottom posting, does it really matter? Can't we all adapt to both, whatever the habits of the writer? Personally I find no problem with either.
Anyway, it's good to have such dedicated and knowledgeable volunteers here - without you, life would be far more difficult for the less expert users amongst us - keep up the good work!
Yours,
Nicholas Newman

Nicholas Newman
Nicholas.Newman at Skynet.be