[Tfug] top/bottom and middle posting

[Angus Scott-Fleming]

On 16 Feb 2009 at 19:04, Glen Pfeiffer  wrote:

> Inline replying consists of selective quoting. You only leave 
> those parts of the original email that you are replying to. It 
> takes a bit more work, but really aids in understanding. They key 
> to this method is to *delete* anything that does not have to be 
> there for your email to make sense.

+1

Top-posting is evil.

Bottom-posting is almost as bad.

IMHO, YMMV, etc. etc.

What ESR has to say about posting styles is relevant here:
    bottom-post
    In a news or mail reply, to put the response to a news or email 
    message after the quoted content from the parent message. This is 
    correct form, and until around 2000 was so universal on the Internet 
    that neither the term `bottom-post´ nor its antonym top-post existed. 
    Hackers consider that the best practice is actually to excerpt only 
    the relevent portions of the parent message, then intersperse the 
    poster's response in such a way that each section of response appears 
    directly after the excerpt it applies to. This reduces message bulk, 
    keeps thread content in a logical order, and facilitates reading.
    http://catb.org/jargon/html/B/bottom-post.html

Compare to "top-post":
    top-post
    [common] To put the newly-added portion of an email or Usenet 
    response before the quoted part, as opposed to the more logical 
    sequence of quoted portion first with original following. The problem 
    with this practice is neatly summed up by the following FAQ entry:

    A: No.
    Q: Should I include quotations after my reply?

    This term is generally used pejoratively with the implication that 
    the offending person is a newbie, a Microsoft addict (Microsoft mail 
    tools produce a similar format by default), or simply a common-and-
    garden-variety idiot.

    One major problem with top-posting is that people who do it all too 
    frequently quote the entire parent message rather than trimming it 
    down to those portions relevent to their reply - this makes threads 
    bulky and unnecessarily difficult to read and arouses the righteous 
    ire of experienced Internet residents (this style is called "TOFU" 
    for "text over, fullquote under", or sometimes "jeopardy-style 
    quoting"). Another problem is that top-posters often word their 
    replies on the assumption that you just read the previous message, 
    even though their perversity has put it further down the page than 
    you have yet read. Oppose bottom-post.
    http://catb.org/jargon/html/T/top-post.html

My favorite Wikipedia article on "posting":
    Posting (laundering process) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_(laundering_process)


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Angus Scott-Fleming
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