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Subject: Re: Email ettiquette (was RE: windows won't detect my ipod)

Re: Email ettiquette (was RE: windows won't detect my ipod)

From: Rocker <rocker_at_shaw.ca>
Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2007 20:48:56 -0700

Hi,

Well I might as well chime in here.
Being blind, I prefer top posting. and I'll tell you why:

I get a little tired of reading the same snips over and over when a
particular subject explodes into a very long thread just to get to a comment
at the bottom of a post which, in many cases is only a sentence or two in
length. Then, you go through it all again when reading the nest message in
the discussion topic and so on.

Conclusion, I like bottom posting for those threads with short questions and
answers like:

On March 2, 2007 _at_ 8:41 PM, Mountain Standard Time, Northern hemisphere,
rocker writes::

Why hasn't Jourg posted to the list in months?

rocker answers:

He's to busy creating the mini speech synth for rockbox.

(grin)

I don't really mind Top posting for lengthy discussions such as this.

Back to the bat cave...rocker

----- Original Message -----
From: "Nathan Hevenstone" <jimmyrrpage_at_gmail.com>
To: <christof_at_infinitus.co.uk>; "Rockbox" <rockbox_at_cool.haxx.se>
Sent: Friday, March 02, 2007 8:14 PM
Subject: Re: Email ettiquette (was RE: windows won't detect my ipod)


I top-post, myself (I'm doing that here). And I do that for two reasons:

1. It's easier for me
2. I use Gmail, which sets top-post by default, and it's easier to read on
Gmail with top-posting.

To me, the bottom-posting on emails gets really confusing, because of the
way previous emails are quoted. And no, I'm not blind or anything. It's
just easier that way. Like Chris said: I'd rather see the reply and then
the original message rather than the other way around, mainly because, when
reading a new email, it's for the reply, not the message the sender is
replying to.

On 3/2/07, Christopher Woods <christof_at_infinitus.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Matthew Caron [mailto:matt_at_mattcaron.net]
> > Sent: 03 March 2007 02:16
> > To: Rockbox
> > Subject: Re: Email ettiquette (was RE: windows won't detect my ipod)
> >
> > Actually, on a completely different topic and mostly from a
> > social commentary perspective, I've noticed this quite a bit
> > in my transition from engineering/tech focused fields to
> > having more dealings with management. I used to be a firmware
> > engineer to a printer company, then a consultant writing
> > .NET, now I write Perl and PHP for an insurance company. It
> > seems like the further you get away from hackers and the more
> > you get towards non-computer folks (product managers,
> > engineers from other disciplines, my mother, etc.), the more
> > people simply can't handle inline comments and what we
> > consider "proper" use of email.
> > Hence, they top-post, quote incorrectly, are imprecise in
> > their use of language and explanations, etc. The thing is, I
> > can't figure out why - I try and explain why these approaches
> > are better, and they seem to make an effort, and end up just
> > getting more confused. It must be some difference in the way
> > they think vs. the way I think.
>
>
> Interesting this; it's something I've noticed a lot on all the lists I
> participate in. Personally, I top-post when replying to emails or lists
> where it's not minded (where, say, the list admin top posts himself and so
> it's not minded that much) but I do try to make the effort to reply below
> the message on lists like this where I know there's a lot more users who
> do
> it the 'classical' way. ;) I find top-posted replies easier to read, it's
> quicker, for me anyway, to view an entire conversation just based on
> jumping
> to each email received in chronological order with the same topic. Just
> about everybody I speak to in emails and correspond with top-posts, I
> think
> it's just one of those things people do because it's quicker - and, for me
> at least, there's no appreciable downsides to doing it, because you do
> have
> the original message below the reply for clarity or context should you
> wish
> to read it (instead of having to skip all the way past it to view the
> response). Those few seconds per message can really add up if you're going
> through a lot of emails...
>
> It's the classic 'old skool vs. nu skool' debate once again - I guess I'm
> in
> the nu skool camp of email users insofar as method in which I write my
> replies :) And no, I'm not blind, just eternally short of time, and yes,
> I've also considered that top-posting is more beneficial for the
> partially-sighted and blind people on lists such as this (which is why I'd
> do it all the time if I knew that it wouldn't rile people as much as it
> seems to do).
>
> For me, it's not so much as a "can't handle inline commenting" issue, I
> will
> do that if the need arises (say, I'm replying to many points through a
> lengthy email) but for short responses, I can't really see much point in
> replying below the original message. I scan through my list of emails in
> Outlook, I click on one and it displays in the autopreview pane below the
> message list, I read the reply, I move on - having to skip chunks of
> original text wastes time imho and is a behaviour which is declining in
> usage (maybe for the best, in the grand scheme of things, change is good),
> at least from what I see. It makes no perceivable difference to the
> behaviour of email clients (like Outlook and gmail, where you can organise
> things into conversations) - it does that based on the date and the email
> title, so putting the original message before your reply seems a bit
> pointless these days.
>
> Thoughts? Obvious pros/cons for top/bottom posting?
>
>


-- 
See Me at my YouTube Channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/jimmyRRpage
Please comment!
Received on 2007-03-03

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