> From: Carl Olivier [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> A lot of people on this forum Top Post.
>
> Is this really such a big issue?
I can sum it up with the following quote:
-- snip --
A: Top posting.
Q: What's the most confusing thing about mailing list messages?
-- snip --
If I'm reading through list traffic, I cannot remember the context of
each thread, and that context may jump about as different posters
respond to different parts of a thread at different times. *Carefully
trimmed* context, followed by a response, helps me get up to speed and
respond more quickly and possibly more accurately than I otherwise
would. However, speaking personally, I'd rather somebody top-posted
than left ten pages of mangled context in place and added a line at the
bottom.
A message to a mailing list will get read many more times than it is
written. Overall, time is saved if the poster makes the effort to
create a clear, communicative message. However, the poster's time is
typically saved by not doing so, and an individual will usually only do
something if it is worthwhile to *them* rather than to the community at
large. That's life. I'd like to think that if I reliably construct
clear messages, regulars on the list may choose to respond to me where
they wouldn't choose to respond to a messy, mangled message*. However,
I've not seen or done any studies to check whether this might be the
case.
- Peter
* Interested parties may wish to check the game theory literature for
repeated rounds in games, of which the most famous is probably the
repeated Prisoner's Dilemma.
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