Top-posting means that you put what you have to say at the top of the reply the way I do it here. Bottom-posting means that you put your reply below the original message. Which of the two styles is preferred is largely a matter of personal taste, rather than right or wrong, actually*. Both have advantages, and some people tend to get very passionate about their particular style. I have seen moderators on both sides of the issue admonish members "don't top-post" or "don't bottom-post".
In the original Internet culture, bottom-posting was preferred, and some people still like it better. Bottom posting makes most sense when you combine multiple thoughts in a single post, and want to be able to respond to each one individually. In my mind, most of the time top posting actually is better because the reply stands out more than the original question - which usually is what you want. The majority of mailing lists that I am on seems to have switched to primarily top-posting, though, and most of the big email programs make it quite difficult to do bottom-posting. When you hit Reply, the cursor is usually positioned at the top of the page, not at the bottom. My personal rule: if there already is a longer thread, stick with whatever style it has. The one thing you don't want to happen is having to look for the next reply because somebody switched style in the middle. If there is no pattern to follow (such as in this case), and I only want to respond to a post as a whole rather than individual points, I use top posting. * technically speaking, there is a still-valid RFC that specifies bottom-posting, but in practical terms it has been obsoleted by history. Martyn wrote: > PS what his top posting, once I find out I will stop it > -- Kevin Keane Owner The NetTech Find the Uncommon: Expert Solutions for a Network You Never Have to Think About Office: 866-642-7116 http://www.4nettech.com This e-mail and attachments, if any, may contain confidential and/or proprietary information. Please be advised that the unauthorized use or disclosure of the information is strictly prohibited. The information herein is intended only for use by the intended recipient(s) named above. If you have received this transmission in error, please notify the sender immediately and permanently delete the e-mail and any copies, printouts or attachments thereof. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Crystal Reports - New Free Runtime and 30 Day Trial Check out the new simplified licensign option that enables unlimited royalty-free distribution of the report engine for externally facing server and web deployment. http://p.sf.net/sfu/businessobjects _______________________________________________ Nagios-users mailing list Nagios-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nagios-users ::: Please include Nagios version, plugin version (-v) and OS when reporting any issue. ::: Messages without supporting info will risk being sent to /dev/null