Bottom quoting only works in conjunction with appropriate editing - getting rid of unnecessary stuff that everyone's read already, removing sigs, fixing editing issues.
Top quoting is easier, but a) falls apart when you need to reply inline, and b) only preserves the entire contents of the conversation if everyone replies to the last post in the thread only. As soon as the thread forks, each message contains a slightly different version of the thread history.
I think it's dependant on the nature of both medium and message.
At work when dealing with idiots, it seems best to top-post and preserve the entire chain. Then when you get the 'I never agreed to X' argument, one's able to Show Logs. (Mind you, the passive-aggressive rules of intra-business mail drive me bugfuck)
Proper conversations via mail are damn well going to be quoted-and-inline because they are actual conversations rather than 'Ha Ha! Business!'-style exchanges of pontification.
Things like LJ and Bix/Cix/CoSy that do threading and store/display of the complete state do not need quoting unless you're making a tiresome usenet-style (tautology) rhetorical point.
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Top quoting is easier, but a) falls apart when you need to reply inline, and b) only preserves the entire contents of the conversation if everyone replies to the last post in the thread only. As soon as the thread forks, each message contains a slightly different version of the thread history.
no subject
At work when dealing with idiots, it seems best to top-post and preserve the entire chain. Then when you get the 'I never agreed to X' argument, one's able to Show Logs. (Mind you, the passive-aggressive rules of intra-business mail drive me bugfuck)
Proper conversations via mail are damn well going to be quoted-and-inline because they are actual conversations rather than 'Ha Ha! Business!'-style exchanges of pontification.
Things like LJ and Bix/Cix/CoSy that do threading and store/display of the complete state do not need quoting unless you're making a tiresome usenet-style (tautology) rhetorical point.