> > Of course top-posting does make sense to the vast majority of office > workers. Generally they must have some idea of what the question was, > perhaps from the subject-line or because of who (or which list) is > responding. Also it is possible to answer a question in such a way > that gives clues about what the question was.
I would, personally, disagree that it makes sense - it is a consequence of the default settings of the default mail client (i.e. in-line quoting, signature above previous message and so on). In order to accommodate such settings, people get in to the habit of writing replies such that the answer includes the question - or worse just put a "yes" or "no" at the top without any context. It would make more sense to intersperse their answers after the questions, but most people just accept the default and work around it, or can't be bothered to (or don't know you can) change the quoting style. And thus it becomes the "norm". > > I'm sorry there is this huge disconnect between potential users and > the geeky places where they might otherwise have been able to get > help. It's just another blocker that prevents normal office workers > from potentially using this office program. If you need to increase > market-share or attract or maybe convert people then bottom-posting is > one of the blockers. Just something to mull over. It doesn't bother > me either way, top bottom or middle is all fine with me. I think you've got something a bit skewed here. Nobody is saying that in order to use Evo you must not top post - what people do in the privacy of their own office is of no concern of Evo - it's not a "blocker" in any way. All that people are saying is that in the context of a mailing list top posting is more of a nuisance than elsewhere; there are often multiple answers and discussions of a single point from multiple people and trying to follow them by scrolling down to see what particular aspect you are talking about in a complex discussion can get very difficult - interspersing comments in the context of what they refer to makes it much easier to understand. All types of "communities" on the net have their traditions or norms - posting to a forum is very different to posting to a mailing list which is different to commenting on a blog which is different to Facebook or Twitter. Even within a genre there can be differences depending on the topic - for example, in Usenet there are different norms between the alt.* and comp.* hierarchy - and god help you if you get it wrong. When interacting with a community, especially when you are soliciting answers to a question, it is surely only polite to try and conform to the local norms whether it be on the net or IRL. I'm also a bit dubious about the concept of an office-based end user asking for help on a mailing list - my experience is that they will virtually always ask a colleague or pluck up the courage to ask IT Support (who might then go on the net to find the answer), but they will never delve into the nasty world of the internet to find out something. Overall I think you are getting wound up about something that is largely a non-issue. Usually what happens is if someone top posts they will politely be asked not to do it in future - there's no flaming, no agro, no contempt. Most people are happy to comply. It's only when someone overtly refuses does it start winding people up and it turns into an "issue". We may be a bit grumpy at times here, but we are not, generally, unfriendly. P. _______________________________________________ evolution-list mailing list [email protected] To change your list options or unsubscribe, visit ... https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/evolution-list
