[Tutor] Identifying V3 examples

[Jon Paris]

On Jul 23, 2015, at 10:41 AM, Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info> wrote:

> 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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See my response to Alan.


Jon Paris
jon.f.paris at gmail.com