Hi In some cases I agree with You.. Like Your answers for this long letter should be in-line answers. With long letter it is a good idea to answer by question as You did. But with a single question a top-post is the way to go. If I follow a thread with a single question, I can then very easy see how the problem solving is progressing by just reading the top-post and clicking on the subject line. No need for scrolling. So, in my mind there is not a single perfect way, but it depends of the structure of the original letter. As this answer is a "general" reply, it does not neet to be answered line-by-line, top post is better here... People who has followed this thread knows what it's all about... if not, they can then scroll down. Jaska. On Thursday 17 October 2002 02:25, Philipp Thomas wrote:
Doug McGarrett
[14 Oct 2002 19:58:42 -0400]: Yes, replies at the top are most useful.
Nope, they're the most annoying ones. They only show ignorance to established rules and an unwillingness to adapt (like sending additional answers by mail because it's too hard to edit the header).
At my saltmine--a division of Honeywell--it is a serious offense for anyone to snip anything off an email he is replying to.
A nice example of why common sense is so uncommon (for more hilarious examples see http://computerworld.com/departments/opinions/sharktank/).
Do you include photocopies of all previous replies to a letter in your answering letter? No? Then why do it with email?
And, as an aside, I think the emailer we use at my facility, IBM's Lotus Notes, was actually written for a UNIX system before it was ported to Windows, but I'm not sure.
Notes may be many things, but it is among the worst MUAs that I've come across. In fact, calling it a MUA is a deep insult to those programs that actually deserve that name.
It "top-posts."
I've written it before in a reply to you months ago: the fact that those that programmed the Notes client didn't have a clue doesn't make it a standard in a world where the rules are *much* older than Notes.
Philipp