[Foundation-l] Top posting

[William Pietri]

On 06/14/2010 04:44 AM, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> For your
> information, and for the somanyth time, top posting comes easy when you use
> a modern tool like GMAIL. It automatically hides whatever came before. This
> whole notion has no relevance to me as a consequence.  I get hundreds of
> mails and the notion that one should be answered differently then others is
> not easy to consider. I answer to the content to a mail and that is not
> related to who will receive it. [...]
>    

The difference is that we're really talking about two different media.

Email is great for small groups of involved people having a discussion.

Large mailing lists are ways of using the tools of email to distribute 
content to thousands of people with widely differing levels of 
involvement and engagement. It's publishing, disguised as discussion. 
That throws a lot of people off.


If you're having trouble telling the difference between the two because 
you've chosen to use the same tool for both, one possible solution is 
for you to use a different tool for each. There are plenty of other 
solutions, too. Pursuing any of them requires, of course, that the 
writer values the reader experience over authorial convenience. I think 
that's helpful in any sort of publishing, not just mailing lists. 
Helpful for readers and writers alike.

William