On Mon, 23 Jun 2003, Peter McCracken wrote: > On Mon, 2003-06-23 at 21:09, Spundun Bhatt wrote: > > > > Another thing mentioned last time in a similar thread was top-posting. > > While I have harrassed the online community a lot with my top posted > > mails, I am trying to change that, is there any guidelines available for > > this? Sometimes I feel that if my message is starting on the second page > > of the mail, no-one is going to read it. > > And perhaps someone could answer why bottom-posting is better, anyway? > I'll obey it, if that's etiquette. But I would have thought top posts > were easier to read.
I've seen it summed up as follows: A: top posting Q: What is one of the most annoying things in newsgroups and email discussion groups? Top posting eliminates the context of the answer. That said, I will top post when giving a short reply to a long email that can't be trimmed down without losing too much information. No one likes having to scroll down through three pages of quoted material to find one new line, which can be quite easy to miss if your client doesn't colorize or otherwise format the quoted lines (italics, etc). Which is another point, include only the relevant parts of the email. Definately do not include signatures or anything you're not replying to. This makes the email more readable, and helps those who pay by the byte. Deletion of content can be indicated with a line that says "[snip]". Example: > yesterday I started doing task A. [snip] > I get error F00 every time I try option B. What's wrong? The discussion of top vs bottom posting also usually doesn't mention interspersed, which is frequently the most appropriate. If you ask 10 questions, I will usually answer each one in turn, rather than all at the top or bottom of the email (deleting those I can't answer). If you do this, the last line of the email should still be yours. Don't continue to quote stuff after you're done replying. That's just noise, and readers will wonder if they've missed something. One other thing, when replying, keep the reply indicator simple, such as a good ole '>'. A five character reply indicator is quite excessive. -- Marshal Newrock, Simon's Rock College of Bard Caution: product may be hot after heating -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
