Top posting

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

On Sunday, 21 March 2004 at 22:41:12 -0500, Jud wrote:
>
> On Mon, 22 Mar 2004 13:04:36 +1030, "Greg 'groggy' Lehey"
> <grog at FreeBSD.org> said:
>> On Sunday, 21 March 2004 at 20:27:57 -0600, Kirk Strauser wrote:
>>> At 2004-03-22T01:23:45Z, "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at freebsd.org> writes:
> [snip]
>>> I think the main difference between top- and interleaved-posting is
>>> one of latency.  In an office environment, when you're replying
>>> within 2 minutes of receipt of a typically short message, top
>>> posting is reasonable.
>>
>> Well, I'll concede that it could barely be acceptable under such
>> conditions.
>>
>>> On Usenet and mailing lists, where you see large, complex questions
>>> that get discussed over the span of days and weeks, interleaved
>>> posting is the only format that remotely makes sense.
>>
>> Sure.  Now how do you know in advance to which category each message
>> belongs?  Where do you draw the line?  And what's the advantage of top
>> posting?
>
> The very last thing I ever thought I would find myself doing is defending
> the efficacy of top posting under any circumstances, but, well, here it
> is:
>
> Lotus Notes (at least the versions I've been using at work the last 6 or
> so years) is configured to top-post,

Ah.  This is something different, but at least I understand now.  Yes,
I've used Lotus Notes too.  It drove me mad.  The issue here is that
Lotus is not capable of quoting text; it simply appends it.  But it is
possible to bottom post.  The result is that most recipients don't
bother to look for it; they think it's a null reply.  In my view, this
is an example of completely broken communications.

> and a good thing, too.

I strongly disagree.

> As more important problems move up the chain of responsibility at
> work, you deal with people who have less and less time to spare.

So you barrage them with the entire previous communications history
instead of the relevant parts?  See my three examples from a few hours
ago.  Which was shortest?

> They will want to see the couple-of-sentence summary written by the
> person immediately below them in the chain of command.

Apart from the fact that such people make up only a small number of
the users, this has nothing to do with the MUA.  This is a matter of
their subordinates knowing how to express themselves.

> Depending on what that summary says, they might want to check
> further (lower).  In rare, extraordinary situations, they might read
> all the way to the last message (typically written by the first
> person of managerial level to see the problem).

This is a very unusual situation.  It would be easier for them to ask
a question and ignore the attachments, which is almost certainly what
they do.

> For these folks, interleaving or bottom-posting would unnecessarily
> increase information-gathering and decision-making time,

This is an assertion.  I would disagree (WRT interleaving).

> significant if you are making hundreds of critical decisions each
> day.

I don't make hundreds of critical decisions every day, but I receive
thousands of mail messages.  I prefer interleaved mail exactly because
I can address it faster.  When I used Lotus, I found it took about 20
times as long to process a message as it did with a real MUA.  Part of
that was the lack of an editor.

> (Yes, there are valid criticisms of decision-making based on this
> sort of whispering-down-the-line information.)

I do agree that the people at the top should only get what they need.
That's normal good business organization.  Where we differ is how to
achieve this information.

> How do you know in advance?  Where do you draw the line?  Pretty
> simple in practice, really, at least in my particular situation.  At
> work (where there is no choice anyway due to Lotus Notes'
> configuration), particularly when writing to managerial levels above
> me, I would not hesitate to top-post;

Yes, I ended up doing that after a number of people didn't see my
replies :-(

> even if interleaving were possible, I might think twice about it.

I wouldn't, not for a second.

Greg
--
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