One can argue that top-posting is about maintaining a complete record of the conversation (um ... in case you need to forward the entire conversation to somebody else some day?) rather than quoting for context. Of course, it's a pretty inefficient way to keep that record, especially if you have a threaded mail reader, and it makes the times when you _do_ want to quote for context kind of strange. You can break top-posting (my usual answer), do both (redundant and getting more so with each reply), or just assume the reader will look for the context in the quoted conversation below (which brings us smack dab into Keith's observation again). So yeah, in my book, barring some special circumstances, what he said applies to email as well, if a wee bit less strongly because most folks just don't bother to scroll down.
In general, yeah, but when I see something interesting that looks like the end or middle of a conversation I want to see the rest of, often (i.e. if both parties used the 'reply' button instead of just making new tweets from scratch), I can just click on one of the messages and get a thread in first-at-top order. In a long thread I might have to click on the topmost tweet shown to get farther back in the thread.
Still, as you note, reading one's feed one sees everything backward.
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As for top-posting in general, a QotD from 2003:
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In general, yeah, but when I see something interesting that looks like the end or middle of a conversation I want to see the rest of, often (i.e. if both parties used the 'reply' button instead of just making new tweets from scratch), I can just click on one of the messages and get a thread in first-at-top order. In a long thread I might have to click on the topmost tweet shown to get farther back in the thread.
Still, as you note, reading one's feed one sees everything backward.
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"Yes!
[thing I quoted]"
But at least it's not nested (any more).