Olin Lathrop wrote:
> I think that not taking a future post up to around 24 hours into account =
is
> generally accepted and not out of line for a email list. =A0I don't know =
how
> others feel, but certainly a few hours is well within the accepted norm,
> where a week could be considered rude.

That definitely makes sense. I would call it an "academic" approach.
If discussed questions are as serious as it would take a number of
hours to solve the task and compose the reply, and it would take a
number of hours to read and understand the reply, then, yes, it makes
sense to reply the message that had been posted a number of hours ago
without reading newer posts. Though, even in this case it would not
hurt to quickly look through the newer posts. But the probability that
the post would be affected by newer posts is very low, as the
complexity of the academic science is very high.

In the public forums like this one, it's very unlikely that serious
tasks will be solved. A typical reply would take only few minutes.
Thus, in my opinion, in such forums, it makes sense before replying to
the thread, to look through all the unread messages of the thread just
to make sure the problem is not solved already.

But, again, I don't insist on either of the models, both are valid and
let anyone choose the model that fits his nature the best. I'll try
not to call the delays "strange".

--=20
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist
.