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Rockbox mail archiveSubject: Re: Top-Posting, Vis-a-Vis Last Night's FussRe: Top-Posting, Vis-a-Vis Last Night's Fuss
From: Christopher Chaltain <cchaltain_at_austin.rr.com>
Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 23:01:14 -0500 Dominik Riebeling wrote: > And why does "business e-mail" use top-posting? Simply because nobody > bothered about the readability of the mails! Some guys decided "we > need email", started using it but did not think a minute about how it > works and a good way to use it. (And no, you can't convince me there's > a really good reason for using top-posting for business email, > especially not about how it originated. In business snail mail you > don't copy the original and attach it to your answer, do you? Why do > this for email?). > > Sadly, top-posting has become a widespread phenomenon and even more > sadly most people refuse to think only a few minutes about the topic > and look after good solutions. > > In snail mail, I don't typically embed my replies in the context of the person who sent me the original mail either. When I'm replying to someone's snail mail, I typically assume they remember what they sent me and I write a letter using paragraphs, sentences, complete ideas and so on. Similarly, if someone sends me an email, when I reply, I consider things like how many people I'll be including on the response, how familiar they are with the issues, how many issues are being addressed and so on. Actually, I don't really even think about it all that much. If someone sends me a note like "What MP3 player would you recommend to use with Rockbox?" I'd top post a reply with something like "You can find out more about the MP3 players that work with Rockbox at the following site:" Of course, I could leave the original question there and bottom post just the URL, but in most cases, since the person knows the question they sent me, it seems unnecessary. I do the same in the blindness related mailing lists I participate in. However, when I get a mail with multiple points and my response is going to multiple people, I obviously embed my responses in line. I could be wrong, but I still think that there are plenty of situations where there's nothing wrong with top posting, and in fact, it's preferable. If you have a better argument for why top posting serves no purpose other than the adhomenin argument you used above, I'm all ears! -- Christopher cchaltain_at_austin.rr.comReceived on 2007-08-28 Page template was last modified "Tue Sep 7 00:00:02 2021" The Rockbox Crew -- Privacy Policy |