"Scott Marlowe" <scott.marlowe@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > But the other reason is that top posters are often the biggest > offenders of not editing their replies. there's nothing like seeing a > one line reply to a 500 line conversation. > When inline posting, one can delete the parts of the converstation > that they aren't replying to so that it is obvious what parts they are > replying to and keep their post concise. The real point here is that when writing to a mailing list, you should make an effort to conserve other peoples' time. Hundreds of people are going to read what you wrote, possibly thousands when you count in people searching the list archives in the future. Saving them a few seconds apiece adds up fast. Not bothering to expend a minute of your own time to make it a bit easier on the reader marks you as a boor. In the context of this particular issue, what that means is that it's polite to quote only enough of the previous message to make it clear what you're replying to --- you should assume that most readers already saw the earlier message and don't need to read it all again, but maybe could use a few sentences of context to remember what the thread was about (especially since it might be hours or days since they read the prior message). And you should quote the part of the message that bears on what you've got to say, if there's an identifiable part that you're responding to. And that quoting should come before your reply, because otherwise your comment is out of context for the reader; again, they'd have to burrow through the quoted message to remember what the discussion was, and then come back and re-read your comment. Another reason for being selective when you quote is to be polite to people searching the list archives in the future --- they don't want to be buried in hits from repeated quotes of the message they're actually looking for. I don't say that you *can't* top post and still be polite, but nearly every example I've ever seen came off as rude to the reader because it didn't take any of these things into account, and it very obviously was something that the sender didn't spend any time on. If people decide you're a jerk they're likely to ignore your posts. regards, tom lane ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend
