I am increasingly running into problems with email communications. My normal posting style (as established by ancient Internet rules, and my email software configuration (Eudora)) is that the response comes above, and I reply below. Unfortunately, many people seem to have adapted the Microsoft/AOL/Morondujour standard of top responding. This becomes a mess when engaged with an extended email discussion between two people of differing protocols.

I find it very frustrating to do a top post, but if I don't, then it becomes very difficult to find the history of the exchange, since they switch back and forth.

Is there a solution to this problem?

Yeah, bottom-posting is dead, unfortunately.

I now top post for single-block responses; if I'm replying in-line, to a few sentences at a time, I reply below each quote.

It's a mess and I don't like it. I can't figure out a better method, though. I'm all ears.

Use multiple colors

Use multiple colors

I almost shot my coffee out of my nose. :)

That's what we need: top posting in HTML mail. A winning combination!

Yes, the solution is to give up and switch to top posting. Sometimes you can buck the trend, but you can't fight the tide.

Quote from anon: "Use multiple colors

I almost shot my coffee out of my nose. :)'

You know there is a much easier way to color the text on your screen then through mucosal projections ;)

Rand, look for an option in your client to include and indent original message text. Really though I don't believe there is going to be an eloquent solution to this issue.

I generally suggest high explosives for top posters. Sadly, I (as you) am in the minority.

Top posting has little to do with Microsoft. Sun Microsystems was a top-posting culture on UNIX workstations when Outlook hardly existed at all. It is called by the desire of instant CYA, when the whole thread gets resent in every message. It can even be convenient if the thread moves slowly and you delete all messages on which you already replied.

So, Microsoft only adopted what dumb managers were doing already. Naturally Microsoft, being Microsoft, added their own damage. They made their top-posting system to indent the body of the quote, but not the header. In a couple of rounds the attribution gets impossibly confusing, especially if a non-MS MUA gets involved.

The only way to keep top posters at bay is a combo of fire and sword. Some people quote the old favourite:

A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

Others use their powers to codify decent netiquette, like Andrew Morton in this:
http://www.zip.com.au/~akpm/linux/patches/stuff/top-posting.txt

Simple answer: When replying at the bottom, I put a line at the top that says "my reply is at the bottom."

it depends, if you respond to the whole mail and expect the recipient to still remember what he/she wrote about, top posting is good, but if it's a long mail and you want to reiterate some points one by one, or if there's multiple recipients or it's in a newsgroup, it's useful tuo quote the mail's points and respond to them separately below. At least that's the way I've always done and it does make sense.

I always take the effort to edit my replies conforming to the "ancient rules". Every once in a while, my correspondent gets the hint. A recent business correspondent was mystified -- he even related to a mutual acquaintance that he'd thought I was "being sarcastic" (with my quotebacks of his test, which conclusion went right past my comprehension), and then he "noticed the pattern". Now, he understands and replies correctly.

Yeah; it's a goddamned mess, and I might be foolish, but I haven't given up the fight. Sometimes, there's a win to be had.

Rand,

The reason for top responding is the same as to why your blog is in reverse chronological order: the newest stuff is always on top. It's annoying, especially on long e-mail threads, to scroll down to the bottom to read the newest comment/content. With top responding, you will always see what the person e-mailing you wants you to see first. If you need history, you can always scroll down.

I prefer top responding for short (2 or 3 sentence) responses. Line by line response (aka Fisking style) is better for longer e-mails.

YMMV

I found it quite ironic that someone who uses reverse-chronological blog posting would find the same style in e-mail so abhorrent.

It's one thing if the conversation is being posted on a multi-user space, such as a comment or message board. But, for e-mails, whose history you should at least be somewhat aware of, top-reply makes more sense to me.

Then again, I grew up during the explosion of the internet, not before it, so I might not have the requisite reason and wisdom that some of you old folks have when it comes to this sort of thing...

I found it quite ironic that someone who uses reverse-chronological blog posting would find the same style in e-mail so abhorrent.

A blog is not an email. For a blog, it makes sense to have the most recent posts at the top, because there's not necessarily any relationship between one blog post and another. Emails, however, are a continuing discussion. Note that blog comments are oldest at the top, because they are a discussion.

The difference, John, is that a blog is not a "conversation". A blog is designed to pile up text indiscriminately in a digital document. When you refer to "history", what you're really talking about is shipping that entire history around over and over again every time someone has anything to say to it, which is what happens with top-posting. I don't know who you correspond with, but I've seen e-mails (and Usenet posts) the bottom of which nobody had seen in just about forever because everybody was quite happy to hit the top of it with a lick and send it on its way. If people should be "aware of the history", then the bloody least they could do would be to swipe it with a mouse and whack the 'Delete' key.

A 10kb e-mail to send me four words at the top?

That's what doesn't make any sense to me.

Well, Billy, if you're concerned that you're getting a 10kb e-mail, with 3 days worth of attached history, and only 4 new words added to the top, then you should talk to whomever sent the e-mail to you. Either they should clean out the unnecessary history, or you should dump old e-mails that contain the same history for the current revision.

The only time I've seen this to be confusing or a problem is with e-mails from list servers, where many people reply at different times, with differing amounts of history attached. In that case, well, take it up with the list and create list rules.

Where I work, the company-mandated e-mail program is Outlook, and it's forced top-posting, which is the protocol for the company, unless you're using inline comments. Occasionally, I'll get week-long comments in an e-mail, but it's work-related, so I don't care how long it is.

Either way, it seems silly to complain about other peoples' e-mail habits on a blog, rather than addressing them with the person you have a problem with.