Tracy R Reed wrote:
Todd Walton wrote:
The trimming part takes care of that. How long did it take you to
scroll down to get through what I just quoted? Probably it didn't.
Outlook is entirely to blame. It divides the window in half horizontally
and many users run at lower resolutions than those of us who know how to
set up our computers. So they only see a few lines of the email at a
time. A dozen quoted lines causes them to have to scroll and feel
inconvenienced. The fact that Outlook doesn't do quoting properly and
puts the cursor at the top of the email to compose a reply doesn't help
either. So many people have jumped onto the net and started doing email
in the last few years using Outlook that they do not realize that there
has already been an established way of replying to email for many years.
This has been a peeve of mine for ages, especially since a coworker at a
former job complained to my boss that I wasn't quoting my emails
"correctly" which to him was Outlook-style.
I always wonder what guys like that would complain about if they saw
other people using the restroom...
Anyway, I remember when I first got exposed to Linux, way back in the
stacks and stacks of slackware floppies days, by a friend of mine who
later became my boss in the university I worked at. My boss was a real
thorn in the side of the C&IT (Computing and Info Tech) guys about tech
issues and what the students in our college of science needed and didn't
need. They got fed up with him and gave him @$70K and said, "buy your
own stuff and leave us alone". So he bought a sparc10 with all the
fixins, several managed switches and a couple routers and other wish
list stuff. Well the first thing we did was setup sendmail and start
handing out e-mail shell accounts with Pine as the MUA. The demand for
these accounts went through the roof because we only handed them out to
the students in our college making it necessary for other students and
other colleges to try to (I'll be nice) falsify their way into an e-mail
account. Now aside from the cool story of my boss and how he tilted at
windmills and beat the C&IT priesthood who I actually heard with my own
ears say, "Why do students need e-mail?", the interesting thing about
the students was that they top posted. I never really thought about it
because I will reply post in the manner the other person is used to
replying.
It wasn't until I joined lists like this with "real" computer types that
I ever bottom posted. Nowadays, everyone but geekdom (affectionately so
named ;^) top posts, probably for the reasons Tracy notes. But way back
then I always thought it made sense because if I am having a
conversation with someone I only need to see/refer to their latest
missive to continue the conversation with them. If it is a conversation
I am joining it is basically like a real verbal conversation in which
you hear the latest exchange (a pun and a dirty word in this context ;^)
and you have to do something *extra* to get to what has already
transpired. The whole idea of bottom posting and scrolling past
everything that has already been said and then to alleviate the burden
of having to scroll past sometimes a ton of lines you have to engage in
editing of your own previous content as well as the content of others...
Well OK cool, that's the way it is done here. But I wouldn't expect
anyone beyond us tech savvy people to follow along with that kind of
reasoning. Especially since unlike us where we have a conscious hold on
each other for conformity and awareness, the average Joe views their
online behavior (and falsely so) as entirely personal, entirely a matter
of their own invention and entirely confidential, Outlook behavior
modification not withstanding.
For the normal garden variety e-mail user bottom reply posting is all
rather much when they are more comfortable with one word and one line
e-mail replies (although they will yak on forever about nothing, sharing
unlimited personal info while using a cell phone in circumstances that
other people can't remove themselves from...). One of the interesting
things that happens to me is that if I have the opportunity to respond
to an e-mail from a regular Joe, and probable MS user, I try to reply by
doing inline responses as we also do. Appearantly that isn't at all
usual in the "real" world of e-mail because in my anecdotal experience I
get return replies of wonder and amazement of how great that technique
is as a way to respond in detail.
I never could figure out why the psychology on this was so different
between geeks and the average Joe. While I agree Outlook (never used it,
never will... I would use Pine or Mutt or something first) probably made
things completely the way they are now, I do remember people finding it
totally natural to top post before Outlook though...
And BTW I just fired up Mutt and a reply places the cursor at the top
also...
rbw
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