Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 20:01:49 +0000 (GMT) From: Jim Durham <durham@w2xo.pgh.pa.us> To: "Sean O'Neill" <sean@seanoneill.info> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Stupid but I don't know what this is - top-posting ??? Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0203271955360.21669-100000@w2xo.pgh.pa.us> In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20020327133848.00a5a560@postoffice.swbell.net>
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On Wed, 27 Mar 2002, Sean O'Neill wrote: > I recently responded to a reply to one of my questions accidentally to just > the replier. He ask me not to "top-post". I saw another email just now > with that same request of someone. > > Please excuse my ignorance but what is top-posting ? I've read what I > think is a currently guidelines for posting questions to freebsd-questions > at http://www.lemis.com/questions.html but it doesn't explicitly say what > top-posting is. > > I assume it has something to do with only replying to a specific individual > and not including the freebsd-questions group ? > Easy, you can start flame wars on this subject! In short, "top posting" is writing your replyi above the quoted text of a mail or news group posting when you reply. The system in use for many years on the internet was that the original person posted his messsage, then the reply quoted his message FOLLOWED by the repling person's reply. This works out very nicely because any repliers to the reply post, then, BELOW the first two postings, and so forth. This makes for a very nice, concise way to figure out what the original posting was, and what the replies and replies to replies referred to. When someone "top posts", he writes his reply ABOVE the original posting or postings and when you try to read such a message, you are constantly "hopping around" from the top to the bottom of the message text trying to figure out who said what.. Hope this helps, -Jim To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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