Top-posting etc. (was: Re: [gentoo-user] Thermal cpu)

[Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.]

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.                     ,= ,-_-. =. 
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ICQ: 514984 YM/AIM: DaTwinkDaddy           `-'(. .)`-' 
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