Re: [Evolution] Evaluating Evolution- some basic questions

[rob cginy net]

> So you trust, in a legal context, that people haven't edited the
> previous messages that you have dutifully copied in each and every
> email??  If you don't, and you have to go back to the original emails to
> verify the content, then what's the point in copying them each and every
> time?

I have to do both, actually.  There have been several times when we have
been able to prove the context of a statement that someone else has
attempted to twist into something it wasn't.  I'm not a lawyer and don't
pretend to be, I simply give the lawyers what they ask for.  I'm aware as
you of the ways in which these things can be changed.  When I have to
provide proof that said e-mail was received in said mailbox at said time
and was sent by said source, I do.  When my company has to show that Bob
was answering a question and not providing instruction based on the
context of the previous e-mail, I can do so in an easy-to-understand
format.

Have you ever heard a single statement that, on it's own, sounded one way
and yet when combined with the preceding statement or question sounded
completely different?

A rather simplistic example that still makes the point-

Bob send an e-mail that simply says "I'm going to kill you"

Bob was replying to an e-mail that asked- "What did Joe say to the other
guy last night when he came up and hit on Joe's wife?"

Obviously, if a case for Bob's violent tendencies was brought up based on
his e-mail, having the entire initiating message below it goes a long to
way to making things clear immediately from the start.


> No, top posting leaving all the previous emails intact is purely because
> people (a) don't know that they should delete extraneous text, or (b)
> they are too lazy, or (c) they *think* it helps provide context.  None
> of which, in my view, or valid reasons.  Use threading, it makes things
> much easier.

Good to know your way is best and will always work every time for everyone.

And all this time I thought I was just not frivolously wasting time and
others' time by not spending untold minutes per day editing e-mails for
"clarity" when in reality I was actually being lazy.

Here's another scenario that happens rather frequently in my world.  A
conversation spanning several send/reply cycles gets to a point where
another opinion is desired.  A single e-mail can then be forwarded to
another party to review the past conversation(s) and provide whatever
input is desired.

How much time does it save when one of my engineers (who need to be
billing for their time and not frittering it away) can just forward a
single e-mail instead of hunting down 10 or 20 or 30 sent and received
mails, collate them into some sort of intelligible order, and then send
that off to Johnny in the other dept for comment.  And who's to say every
important e-mail was included?

I apologize to the list, I didn't mean to come here and start an argument
over e-mail posting styles.  I was simply looking for some functional
feedback on Evo as I am interested in evaluating it.  I'm going to bow out
of this thread at this point and return to matters of a more personal
import to me.

Cheers.