From: Mike Holden <rockbox_at_mikeholden.uklinux.net>
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 16:36:02 +0100 (BST)

George Styles said:
> on a unrelated note, what is prefered ettiquite for mailing lists
> regarding top-posting / bottom-posting - is this correct (Quote then
> reply) or is the other way round prefered???
>
> g

Can of worms time!

The usual idea on Usenet is to post below the text you are replying to,
and to snip out any unrelated text. If you are replying to various
different bits, then put your comment after the text it relates to, then
quote the next bit and reply, and so on. Snipping is essential to keep
mails short and to the point. There's nothing worse (alright, there are a
few worse things!) that receiving an email that has already gone between
10 people, with all the original text in there. The new poster has only
added 1 line of text replying to another line of text, but the email is
several hundred lines long :-(

A reply at the top is ok for a on-off comment, but this soon gets
impossible to follow when several people carry on a conversation in
subsequent emails. For this reason alone, I would not advocate this style.

People read from the top down, so that is the way the logic of your quotes
and new text should go.

It all went fine until a certain software manufacturer set up their email
client to start writing at the top rather than the bottom, and anyone new
to computers using those programs just started typing wherever the cursor
was.

Also, when the topic of conversation changes, change the subject line, but
mention the old subject, as I have done above. After a few more posts, it
is acceptable for someone to snip the "was" part as well.

-- 
Mike Holden
Rockbox page: http://www.mikeholden.org/~rockbox

Received on 2003-07-16