Les Mikesell wrote:
On Mon, May 19, 2014 at 7:06 AM, mark m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:
On 05/17/14 18:29, Alexander Dalloz wrote:
Am 17.05.2014 23:22, schrieb Always Learning:
<snip>
I'ts not really a bad thing in the context of 1<->1 messages and business communications where you are interested enough to not need the reply put in context for you but might want the audit-trail of the whole previous conversation for reference.
But mail list messages go to a lot of people who have only a passing interest and unless they are a participant in the thread, may not have seen it before to understand the context - or they may have found it in an archive, looking for the same answers. So, it you want anyone to pay attention, the message has to make sense on its own with irrelevant cruft removed and the new parts place in the correct context.
What Mike says, above, is *the* most significant argument, and, IMO, trumps all counter-arguments. This *is* a mailing list. Frequently, for example, I'll be busy, or a thread doesn't seem interesting, until I see something that leads me to look in on it... and if it's filled with top-posted unreadable threads, even if I might have some really helpful suggestions, I usually don't *want* to read enough to make them, because I have no idea what's been suggested or discounted before, and I *ain't* gonna read down, up, down, up, up, down....
Top post if you want... but don't expect cooperation or help.
mark