On Tuesday 03 April 2007 18:15:07 Bayrouni wrote: > Sylvain Chouleur a écrit : > > 1) I'm sorry but don't understand what 'top post' means > > When you reply don't write your message at the top but at the bottom. > just at the bottom. > > In other words, write at the last line.
Well, that's somewhat better, but still not ideal.
top post: v.
1. Writing your entire reply to a message (generally email or newsgroup
posting) above any quoted material you are replying to.
bottom post: v.
1. Writing your entire reply to a message (generally email or newsgroup
posting) below any quoted material you are replying to.
Top posting is generally considered either wasteful, if the quoted part
isn't
required, or confusing, since the answers to questions will appear the
questions themselves and the "conversation" will generally be read in the
wrong order. This being said, top posting is preferred in some fora. Top
posting is a common beginner (see n00b) behavior in the face of properly
behaving email/newsgroup client (see below). At least one mail client
(Microsoft Outlook) makes it intentionally difficult to not to top post,
though cursor, signature, and quoted material placement AND non-standard
quoting methods.
Bottom posting is preferred over top posting in most fora, but is still
wasteful especially in combination with "me too" posts, in which the volume
of quoted (and thus at least partially redundant) material greatly dwarfs
the
amount of unquoted (and ideally original) material.
The most preferred method of replying is sometimes called "interleaved
posting". In this case you quote only the relevant parts of the message
you
are replying to, leaving only enough information to provide a context for
your material. The appropriate amount of quoted material can differ
greatly
based on the fora for which the message is intended. Your material is
placed
after what it is replying to, which might be before other quoted material.
Here's an example:
--- Begin Example ---
>> I've filed bug XXX against foo/bar-1.1_pre2; it breaks some of my
scripts
>> I wrote against foo/bar-1.0
>
> That's not a bug. It's a feature.
> Riposte A
I see the security implications, but I've attached a patch that retains the
1.0 behavior while addressing the buffer overflow risk in a future-proof
manner.
> Riposte C
This is the problem with open source software. The %#$@ developers want it
to
be broken. That's a stupid point and you should be ashamed for presenting
it.
--- End Example ---
In the example above, the "Riposte B" text was dropped since the message
contained no direct reply to it.
A properly behaving email/newsgroup client, in absence of other user
preferences, should quote the entire message being replied to (the
format=flowed RFC covers acceptable quoting methods), place the user's
cursor
at the top (or slightly above) the quoted material, and automatically
insert
the content of the users signature (on UNIX, baring other configuration,
this
is in contents of the file $HOME/.sig) below the quoted material after the
standard signature separator ('-- ' on it's own line). The user will then,
move down the message, deleting quoted material irrelevant to their reply
and
writing their content immediately after the relevent quoted material and
stopping when they reach the signature separator. New users often simply
type their reply, without touching the quoted material resulting in a top
post (see above).
--
Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. ,= ,-_-. =.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] ((_/)o o(\_))
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