[Tutor] Identifying V3 examples
Steven D'Aprano
steve at pearwood.info
Thu Jul 23 16:41:33 CEST 2015
On Thu, Jul 23, 2015 at 09:59:22AM -0400, Jon Paris wrote:
> I am not familiar with the term “top post” - I’m guessing you mean
> that my reply came before your original message.
Yes, it means "post at the top". Hence, "top post".
A: Because it messes up the order in which you read.
Q: Why is that?
A: Top posting.
Q: What is the most annoying email practice?
In these sorts of technical forums, email is a discussion between
multiple parties, not just two, often in slow motion (sometimes replies
may not come in for a week, or a month). Often, a single email will
reply to anything up to a dozen or twenty individual points. Top posting
works reasonably well for short replies answering one, maybe two brief
points where the context is obvious. In technical discussions like we
have here, that is rarely the case.
People may be reading these emails on the archives years from now, in
any order. Establishing context before answering the question makes
sense. Without context, our answers may not make sense. Hence we
quote the part we are replying to before we answer it:
Q: What is the most annoying email practice?
A: Top posting.
Q: Why is that?
A: Because it messes up the order in which you read.
> My email does it that way because that is my preference - and for that
> matter most people I do business with. I will however try to remember
> that at least some people on this list don’t like it. Of course the
> minute I change it somebody else will probably complain about that!
What you do in your business emails is up to you, but in my experience
(and YMMV) is that business emails are a wasteland of lazy and
incompetent replies from people who barely bother to read your email
before banging out the shortest top-posted response they can. Not that
I'm bitter :-) If I had a dollar for every time I've asked a customer or
supplier three questions, and they've answered the middle question and
not the two others, I'd be a wealthy man. But maybe I've just been
unlucky :-)
But I digress. You may find this helpful:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style
--
Steve
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