Michael L Torrie wrote:
People who think as you do are using e-mail as either a glorified letter-writing system, or as a glorified text-messaging system. Knowing you, e-mail to you is a text-messaging system where most things are short. Thus your google conversations works fine. But I use e-mail in a larger context where often several important questions are asked or points are made that require a detailed response to each one. Top-posting to this is silly since a) I might miss something and b) it might not always be clear to the recipient which questions I'm answering.
It's all about context. When I write to a mailing list such as this one, I am writing to a group of very Internet-savvy people, so I use the sophisticated conventions appropriate for the audience. When I write an email for people at work, many of the recipients only understand the simplest email conventions, so I top-post out of respect for them.
IMHO, top-posting on a technical mailing list is like wearing a suit to a beach party. Rather than argue with the top-posters, however, I prefer to just watch them flounder. ;-)
Shane /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
