[Tutor] Identifying V3 examples

[Steven D'Aprano]

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