on Tue, Sep 04, 2001 at 01:53:24PM -0600, John Galt (galt@inconnu.isu.edu) wrote:
>
> In case nobody told you, this is a mailinglist, not usenet.
Wrong, it's both:
news:muc.lists.debian.user
> To be more precise, this is a reliable method of ensuring that
> anything you reply to has already been read, thus you shouldn't need
> to scroll through the question all of the time to get to the answer.
> However, for the people who wish to backstop, it's important that the
> question be in the same message as the answer so that misteaks can be
> corrected contextually. Thus top posting is more appropriate.
My preference is that top posting never be considered appropriate.
We've now got a situation in which I'm responding to a top-quoted post,
in which prior content is now further down the list.
If a long response in which context is largely irrelevant is desired,
quoting a line or two of context, and posting beneath it, is far
preferable.
> Needless to say, the best method is to let the replier define how
> their reply goes, but you really didn't do that to Hall, so I feel
> justified in correcting you.
The problem with suggesting prefix responses are suitable in any context
is that this leads almost immediately to bad practices:
- Prefix responses including the entire message body, sigs included,
of the message replied to. In one recent case, this was up to 600+
lines of a list digest. The *multiple* miscreants were roundly
flamed.
- Excessive quoting, sigs and all.
- Prefix responses where followups (and hence, mixed pre/postfix
responses) are likely. E.g.: present case.
- Prefix responses in all contexts.
The poster is requesting the favor of a reply from the readership. This
particular reader strongly deprecates prefix response, and tends to skip
such posts.
From "NNQ: Quoting Style in Newsgroup Postings"
http://www.ptialaska.net/~kmorgan/nquote.html
Q7: Why shouldn't I put my comments above the quoted material?
A7: Keep in mind that you're not writing just for the person whose
posting you're responding to. (If you are, you should be e-mailing
your response instead of posting it.) Thousands of other people may
read what you write. People who aren't directly involved in a
discussion themselves, and who are probably following several
discussions at once, usually follow the logic more easily when they
can read the material in more-or-less chronological order.
When you have just a single question and response, and they're both
short, and the discussion doesn't develop any further, it really
doesn't make that much difference in practice. But it's impossible
to predict in advance whether a response will draw another response.
So in general, it's best to put your response below the text that
you're responding to.
From "Email Quotes" in the Jargon File:
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/Email-Quotes.html
Most netters view an inclusion as a promise that comment on it will
immediately follow. The preferred, conversational style looks like
this,
> relevant excerpt 1
response to excerpt
> relevant excerpt 2
response to excerpt
> relevant excerpt 3
response to excerpt
or for short messages like this:
> entire message
response to message
Thanks to poor design of some PC-based mail agents, one will
occasionally see the entire quoted message after the response, like
this
response to message
> entire message
but this practice is strongly deprecated.
From "Configuring your news reader to post to uk.*"
http://www.usenet.org.uk/ukpost.html#s3
Always put your reply text after the text you are quoting. Remember
that the purpose of quoted text is to provide a context for your
reply - if your reply comes first, forcing the reader to look
further down the message for what you are replying to, the purpose
of quoting (to make things easier for the reader) has been defeated.
Even the Microsoft NG guidelines suggest postfix response:
From: essmvp@microsoft.com
Subject: Welcome - read this first!
http://www.jsiinc.com/newsgroup_document.htm
In follow-ups, whether News or Mail, CUT headers & signatures, PRUNE
quotations, and preserve order. That is to say, quote above each
part of your reply as much of the earlier stuff as is needed to put
the new material in context, but no more; most readers will be able
to refer to the earlier article itself, if need be.
And for general reference (including pointers to the above references),
see "FAQ: Of quoting".
http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/quote.html
> On Tue, 4 Sep 2001, J.H.M. Dassen (Ray) wrote:
>
> >On Tue, Sep 04, 2001 at 08:26:35 -0400, Hall Stevenson wrote:
> >> Now, 'use postfix response' ??
> >
> >"Reply below the text you're responding to".
> >
> >To borrow a sig: "Answering above the the original message is called top
> >posting. Sometimes also called the Jeopardy style. Usenet is Q & A not A &
> >Q." -- Bob Gootee
> >
QED.
--
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