3 ms·

Aren't blogs just one giant top-post after another? I think most-recent-at-the-top is actually quite natural for unbounded conversations, where the most-recent

by dilap 16y ago

Aren't blogs just one giant top-post after another? I think most-recent-at-the-top is actually quite natural for unbounded conversations, where the most-recent posts are likely to be the most relevant, and you almost certainly don't care to read the entire history. Email fits this pretty well. (As an aside, I think the Q/A nature of the example given is unfair, since Q/A conventionally goes top-down. Compare to this, which seems quite natural 28 > How old are you? It's even more natural and obvious to go bottom-up when multiple layers of quoting are present: 28 > How old are you? >> I'll answer exactly one personal question.) As for the interleaved style, it's somewhat a matter of taste, but I find it often creates nitpicky, disjointed conversations; responding in paragraphs rather than lines encourages more cohesive, literarily satisfying exchanges.

jonhendry 16y ago
I don't find those examples natural at all.
- dilap 16y ago
  Well, fair enough. I find it natural, your mileage may vary. :) Do you also find the top-posting style of blogs, twitter, &c awkward? I really do think there is something to be said for putting the newest information first.
  - jonhendry 16y ago
    I don't mind blogs, because posts tend to largely stand alone. They're like consecutive articles in a magazine. It can be a little annoying in the case where, say, a post is tagged, and I click on the tag to get all related posts, and they cover multiple pages and I need to walk to the last page to get the first post. That can be a little annoying. Twitter is a little annoying for me, when there's a discussion going on, where it's difficult to get the context of each twitter message. If the tweets stand alone, as is often the case, I don't really care. Back in the Usenet days, I was a scrupulous interleaved-response writer. Quote the specific sentences or phrases being responded to, followed by my response. I prefer to have that bit of context, right by the response, in that order (quote then response).
    - brianpan 16y ago
      Exactly, I used to interleave...but the times are a changin and there's not much we can do about it. Twitter, FB, blogs are not going to change (nor should they). OP is about 16 years too late to this argument.
- xyzzyb 16y ago
  I find them quite natural. When reading a response, the subject of the email has already clued me into the context, I really don't need to re-read what I already sent, even an edited version. Top answer with my email below for reference, if needed, is what I prefer.
swift 16y ago
I concur with your point that in a situation like a blog or Twitter where you don't necessarily care about the contents of previous posts and the information density is low, top-posting is natural. However, when you DO care about the contents of the previous posts[1], or the information density is higher, I think interleaved posting really starts to shine. When I use email (as opposed to IM, Twitter, etc.) I'm usually discussing technical or business-oriented topics. Precision and context are very important in these discussions, and the emails are often significantly longer than might be common in personal communication. With top-posting, each point or answer is divorced from its context, which can force the reader to jump back and forth in the text to fully understand what's being said, increasing the chances for confusion. Interleaved posting allows me to act as an editor: I remove parts of earlier emails that are irrelevant to the current discussion, group quoted text with the corresponding reply, and add spacing or reorder fragments as needed to improve clarity. I find that in the end, this makes the discussion much easier to follow for the recipient. For me, the bottom line is that when a misunderstanding could waste much more time than it would take me to do a little editing, the interleaved style really makes sense. When I use email, this is usually the case, since I usually use other mediums for personal communication. [1] I can't help but think of this privately as: does this discussion have the Markov property?
- dilap 16y ago
  I agree the interleaved style definitely has its place, and I do use it occasionally, but I find even with highly-topicalized, technical email it can be helpful to simply restate rather than snippet-quote -- it's a chance to verify that you've correctly digested the original point, and you have more control of the flow of your message. Of course, like so many things, a lot of it comes down to a matter of taste. (Still, I must defend the honor and right-thinking of top-posters :)

by dilap 16y ago

jonhendry 16y ago

I don't find those examples natural at all.

dilap 16y ago
Well, fair enough. I find it natural, your mileage may vary. :) Do you also find the top-posting style of blogs, twitter, &c awkward? I really do think there is something to be said for putting the newest information first.
- jonhendry 16y ago
  I don't mind blogs, because posts tend to largely stand alone. They're like consecutive articles in a magazine. It can be a little annoying in the case where, say, a post is tagged, and I click on the tag to get all related posts, and they cover multiple pages and I need to walk to the last page to get the first post. That can be a little annoying. Twitter is a little annoying for me, when there's a discussion going on, where it's difficult to get the context of each twitter message. If the tweets stand alone, as is often the case, I don't really care. Back in the Usenet days, I was a scrupulous interleaved-response writer. Quote the specific sentences or phrases being responded to, followed by my response. I prefer to have that bit of context, right by the response, in that order (quote then response).
  - brianpan 16y ago
    Exactly, I used to interleave...but the times are a changin and there's not much we can do about it. Twitter, FB, blogs are not going to change (nor should they). OP is about 16 years too late to this argument.
xyzzyb 16y ago
I find them quite natural. When reading a response, the subject of the email has already clued me into the context, I really don't need to re-read what I already sent, even an edited version. Top answer with my email below for reference, if needed, is what I prefer.

swift 16y ago

I concur with your point that in a situation like a blog or Twitter where you don't necessarily care about the contents of previous posts and the information density is low, top-posting is natural. However, when you DO care about the contents of the previous posts[1], or the information density is higher, I think interleaved posting really starts to shine. When I use email (as opposed to IM, Twitter, etc.) I'm usually discussing technical or business-oriented topics. Precision and context are very important in these discussions, and the emails are often significantly longer than might be common in personal communication. With top-posting, each point or answer is divorced from its context, which can force the reader to jump back and forth in the text to fully understand what's being said, increasing the chances for confusion. Interleaved posting allows me to act as an editor: I remove parts of earlier emails that are irrelevant to the current discussion, group quoted text with the corresponding reply, and add spacing or reorder fragments as needed to improve clarity. I find that in the end, this makes the discussion much easier to follow for the recipient. For me, the bottom line is that when a misunderstanding could waste much more time than it would take me to do a little editing, the interleaved style really makes sense. When I use email, this is usually the case, since I usually use other mediums for personal communication. [1] I can't help but think of this privately as: does this discussion have the Markov property?

dilap 16y ago
I agree the interleaved style definitely has its place, and I do use it occasionally, but I find even with highly-topicalized, technical email it can be helpful to simply restate rather than snippet-quote -- it's a chance to verify that you've correctly digested the original point, and you have more control of the flow of your message. Of course, like so many things, a lot of it comes down to a matter of taste. (Still, I must defend the honor and right-thinking of top-posters :)