Are You A Top, Or A Bottom?

Do you bottom post, or do you top post? Do you even know what I am saying? No? Okay, when you respond to an email, do you write your response at the top of the editor, or do you write it at the bottom?

Its as simple a question as that. Or is it?

Some people who engage in email significantly have a definite preference. Other’s just don’t give a flying fuck, and to those people I say — This is serious shit, its almost like there is a religious divide out there, just check the archives of any nerd mailing list.

I’m one of the few people who are aware of it, but just don’t care either way. I’ll admit it, I’m a top poster. There is a reason for that — I don’t want to have to read, or even mindlessly scroll, through all the crap that went on previously to get to the most recent addition. I know what was said, I was there, remember?

But then, I think about it a bit more, and I realise there are situations where bottom posting makes more sense. The mailing list situation — perfect example. Business emails that are often forwarded on “FYI” (fuck I hate that btw) — another good example. In these instances I agree that bottom posting makes more sense because I don’t have to scroll all the way to the bottom to read my way back up to see where the latest has come from.

Ultimately though, in my opinion, bottom posting is useful in such a minor set of circumstances that top posting is my choice, and will probably always remain so — shit, I even used Thunderbird, which bottom posts by default, for over a year, and the bottom posting thing was one of the main reasons I switched bask to Outlook.