Hi Ken,
Thank you for your two posts.
I feel I understand what you are saying from your perspective.
From my point of view things are different. I feel the reality is it is a
damn sight easier and faster for most of us to have everything about a topic
in front of them. A key bit of technology that makes a huge difference is
the fast scroll systems common to modern computers.
You suggest that rhetoric would argue for more editing. I feel there is a
strong rhetoric argument against editing and for including all the context
relevant to a post with that post.
Much of design research involves a complex multidimensional philosophical
discourse. When I read a post, I'm wanting to see all the other things that
are part of the argument presented so far in the discussion that the posting
author has not addressed or has glossed over.
The last thing, I want is for the author to start snipping so I can only see
the bits they want me to see! In a research context I prefer to have things
arranged to defend against the manipulations of rhetoric rather than
facilitate them.
To repeat, for me and others like me, the cost of someone snipping all the
background out from immediate view is huge. I have to step out of the email
client and log into jiscmail, find the thread and all relevant articles and
then download all the other postings one at a time - on separate pages.
I'm very happy if people leave all the thread items in their posting as I
can scan that in a second or two.
One design issue I found does make a difference involves older Macs and PCs
without high speed scrolling using a third mouse button or fancy trackpad.
That does make scrolling through longer posts much harder. I stopped using a
G4 iBook for email as I found it slowed things up amazingly badly. The Mac
email clients don't help in this regard either.
I just read your off-list post. I guess we see things differently. I expect
anyone reading to be either familiar with the material in detail (in which
case, all I need to do is remind them where it is), or if they don't know
that material well, I point them to it so they can read it: not just on the
point I'm making but all of it that is relevant. From my point of view,
specifying line and page numbers encourages people to use things out of
context. To get the context requires reading all of an article/book and if
appropriate anything referred to in it.
I suspect most of our differences on this is a combination of transaction
cost and working practices issues. I use computer technology to scan fast
(much faster than books can be read), I want to see all of the context of
what is happening, and don't want to tie up my memory unnecessarily. Also, I
occasionally print things off to read offline. For all of these attributes
the accumulating email model provides huge advantages over other approaches.
On the technology front, wondering are you using Mac or PC?
Best wishes,
Terry
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