On 07/23/2015 09:34 AM, Valeri Galtsev wrote:
>
> On Thu, July 23, 2015 8:43 am, Windsor Dave (AdP/TEF7) wrote:
>>> -----Original Message-----
<snip>
>>>> Sorry for the top post, Outlook defaults strike again.....
>>>
>>> Outlook forces you to write above ? :-)
<snip>
>>
>> Perhaps I should say instead that it "strongly encourages" top posting,
>> and all our internal emails follow that convention.
>>
>> It's habit-forming.... :-)
>
> Well, my habit for regular e-mail exchange is "top posting" thus the
> person reads my message thus is right to the point why this particular
> message message was sent in a first place... But when mail lists are
> concerned, I do an opposite, that is I follow mail lists conventions. I
> never thought about rationale behind them, I'm just following them. I
> believe, if some day someone gives reasons why top posting is bad in case
> of mail lists it will really be great. The only reason I can come up with
> myself would be: whoever reads message received through mail lists usually
> has no idea about previous exchange in this thread, thus needs all
> exchange in chronological order. Which I'm not certain is a good reason,
> so those who know and insists strongly about "no top posting" are
> encouraged to give others the reasons behind that. Again, I'm not "top
> posting" on the lists. However, _this_ ("top posting") is my regular way
> in private exchange (and it has good reasons behind it).
The main reason actually is chronological order. But not just for the
reply .. but for IN-LINE posting.
In a discussion where you need to make points in-line and where you only
need some of and not all of the other posts, something that happens
frequently on mailing lists, it is very much easier to read that type of
collaborated message in chronological order.
I mean, you don't read a book or a newspaper article or a blog post from
bottom to top, right? Why would you read communications from bottom to
top? And it is not really even bottom to top. If you take 4 emails of
10 lines each (and 40 lines total) .. it is 75% down to 100% (original
mail)... then up to 50% and read down to 75% (2nd mail), then up to 25%
and read down to 50%, then up to 0% and read down to 25%. What if
someone made you read blog posts that way, or books or newspaper articles?
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