Posting Order (was: Getting error message...)

Brian Inglis Brian.Inglis@SystematicSw.ab.ca
Sat Feb 9 18:26:00 GMT 2019


On 2019-02-09 07:46, L A Walsh wrote:
> That's why it is very surprising to see computer people treat
> 'email' as a "log" instead of like a chat w/history...

Logs can be displayed most recent first, as with directories or lists in most
products, and chats with history are in chronological order, so...

> Anyway...I'm not so sure I see the benefit of starting to read
> sometime in the past -- especially in the case of a 90
> page support interaction.  Would you really want to read
> 90 pages before you started participating in a discussion?
> 
> Technical lists are not fiction books that are read for fun,
> they are usually where people look to see if something 
> applies by reading the first paragraph or two -- which wouldn't
> be the most recent stuff, by far.
I expect top posting for corporate stuff, with explicit CC lists, mainly on one
corporate server, where nobody reads past the first sentence anyway, or trimming
the old cruft, so you had better repeat everything you need there, similar to
leaving voice mail messages.

I expect bottom posting and trimming for subscriber or volunteer groups like
this, to respect the time and effort of those doing the work, and reduce the
bandwidth distributed across the internet (or Usenet if gatewayed via NNTP - I
still have *LOW* limits on downloaded message size from fighting early spam
blasts there).

Neither group of recipients is going to bother with previous message content,
(unless they are a recent CC added to a long thread, and sometimes not then).

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

This email may be disturbing to some readers as it contains
too much technical detail. Reader discretion is advised.

--
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple



More information about the Cygwin mailing list