reply or follow up

swagman,

When some one answers a question it will be a reply.

Wayne

Any time your heart desires squire.

Gedday swaggie!

Reply is when you reply to a request, a follow up usually enlarges on either your earlier comment or on someone else whose reply you think you can add something intelligent to.

Now I know this sometimes doesn't happen (Re the intelligent bit) but that's about how it should go.

Just be careful you don't do a follow through ! It's Friday !
Good question, one that I have wondered about myself !

Cheers
Giffo (Now a member Woo hoo )

A follow up will generate an email to everyone else in the tree.

A reply will only generate an email to the original poster.

I suspect the idea came from the news groups (usenet) which have been around since close to the start of the internet (was there a "pre-internet" world!? :) and "threaded" news readers - anyone remember TIN?

A thread (post) is started and receives a "Reply".

Any responses which directly address that "Reply" rather than the original post are "Follow-ups".

Any responses which directly address the original post are "Replies".

The reason for doing this is that threads often (almost always :) wander off into areas which the original poster didn't intend and it's about the best way to try and keep some kind of coherence to the thread - always a difficult task on the internet :)

An FAQ for this site, were it available, would answer many of these questions.

Mike Harding