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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

Needlessly numbering lists when bullets would serve the purpose is one of my pet peeves.

Culturally at GitLab we use numbered lists so that it makes it easy to link and reference someone to a spot on the page.

see https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/communication/#writing-sty... number 13:

If you have multiple points in a comment or email, please number them. Numbered lists are easier to reference during a discussion over bulleted lists.

Love the meta

Interesting. With editable docs, things sometimes get added above the points or reordered and then re-numbered which makes the discussion misleading. The reason I prefer bullets is that it encourages people to quote the relevant section when discussing.

Is #28 mixing up sending and receiving?

>28. If an email needs a response, write the answer at the top of it.

Alternatively, it feels like it could read:

> If an email includes a response, place it at the top of it. If an e-mail requires a response, also make that clear at the very top.

The judgement about whether an email needs a response is left to the receiver who would be responding, in their statement. I like that mental model of things. :)

That leaves room for miscommunication, though. If someone expects a response from me, I'd rather they make sure to ask it at the very top so that I don't miss that request with everything else that's going on.

Re-reading the statement, maybe they simply mean replies should be above the original e-mail rather than inline?

I believe that's what they intended to convey, yes.

Funny you should say that, mine is war and cruelty.

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