Emails are a totally different animal than a report. I would never scroll to the bottom of a report and start reading because I have no sense of the topic. Emails on the other hand are discrete bits with most bits repeated. I already have a good sense of the thread so why should I be required to scroll through them to find the change?
In addition most of the emails on this forum are so much fluff. When I do find a thread that is highly technical and I want to learn it, I will spend the time scrolling up and down and clipping text to put it together into another format like my outliner program, ECCO. In that case it matters not at all to me what order exists. The top-posted message is indeed "fresh". That is why I like it there. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul McNett" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 1:33 AM Subject: Re: [NF] Just got strange request from boss. > On 3/24/10 7:26 PM, Charlie Coleman wrote: >> At 05:39 PM 3/24/2010 -0400, Ed Leafe wrote: >>> On Mar 24, 2010, at 5:33 PM, Stephen Russell wrote: >>> >>>> Stephen, >>>> Could you do me and all of us a favor, and when you reply to a message >>>> try to leave the original message intact, and put your reply at the >>>> top. It is difficult sometimes to figure out the sequence of messages >> ... >>> Next time you write a report, make sure to put all the >>> paragraphs >>> and sections in reverse order in order to make it easier for him to >>> read. >> ... >> >> From what I've seen, usually the technical people that want to discuss >> a >> serious topic in email do the standard, correct order, sequence. They'll >> snip, do in-line responses, etc. It's usually the rather >> "techno-challenged" folks (in the office anyway) that seem to thrive on >> top-posting. Some of the higher ups tend to think in "top-posting" >> because >> they expect immediate responses - so in their mind the thread is fresh. > > You gotta just go with the flow. I gave up long ago trying to convince > top-posters of > their lameness. Most of these people have some sort of control over > whether I > continue to get paid, so I gotta pick my battles. > > As they say in the Python world, "Practicality beats purity." > > Paul > _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/a51fe66d88b64c39953556ce1e56f...@dual ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
