Posting Style

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. When a message is replied to in e-mail, Internet forums, or Usenet, the original can often be included, or "quoted", in a variety of different posting styles. The main options are interleaved posting (also called inline replying, in which the reply is woven into the original post), bottom-posting (in which the reply follows the quote) or top-posting (in which the reply precedes the quoted original message). For each of those options, there is also the issue of whether trimming of the original text is allowed or required. While each online community differs on which styles are appropriate or acceptable, within some communities the use of the "wrong" method risks being seen as a breach of netiquette, and can provoke vehement response from community regulars. These issues may not be very meaningful for users of some e-mail clients and services, like Gmail, which display entire e-mail threads in logical order and hide previous content.... Mehr