Editing Posting style (section)

==Placement of replies==

=== Interleaved style ===
<!-- This section is linked from [[Netiquette]] -->

In the interleaved reply style (also called "inline reply", "interlined reply", "point-by-point rebuttal", or, sometimes, "bottom posting"), the original message is broken into two or more sections, each followed by a specific reply or comment.  A reply in inline style may also include some [[#Top-posting|top-posted]] or [[#Bottom-posting|bottom-posted]] comments that apply to the whole reply message, rather than to a specific point.  For example:

 I have been following the discussion about the new product line. Here are my thoughts.
 <br>
 Joe wrote:
 <span style="color:red">
 > Will our prices be competitive?</span>
 <br>
 That may not be a problem for now, we still have a quality edge.
 <span style="color:red">
 > We do not have enough trained people on the West Coast. We have many
 > new employees but they do not know our products yet.</span>
 <br>
 We can bring them here for a crash training course.
 <br>
 Mary wrote:
 <span style="color:red">
 > We still do not have a clear marketing plan. </span>
 <br>
 Peter, would you take charge of that? Let me know if you need help.
 <br>
 On the whole, I am quite optimistic.  It looks like we will be shipping
 the basic system before the end of this quarter.
 Nancy

The interleaved reply style can also be combined with top-posting: selected points are quoted and replied to, as above, and then a full copy of the original message is appended.

 > Can you present your report an hour later?
 <br>
 Yes I can. The summary will be sent no later than 5pm.
 Jim
 <br>
 At 10.01am Wednesday, Danny wrote:<span style="color:blue">
 >> 2.00pm: Present report</span><span style="color:red">
 > Jim, I have a meeting at that time. Can you present your report an hour later?
 ></span><span style="color:blue">
 >> 4.30pm: Send out summary of feedback</span><span style="color:red">
 > Also if you do the above, this may need to happen later too.
 > Danny
 >
 > At 9.40am Wednesday, Jim wrote:</span><span style="color:blue">
 >> My schedule for today will be:
 >> 10.00am: Gather data for report
 >> 2.00pm: Present report to team
 >> 4.30pm: Send out summary of feedback
 >> Jim</span>

Interleaving was the predominant reply style in the [[Usenet]] discussion lists, years before the existence of the [[WWW]] and the spread of [[e-mail]] and the [[Internet]] outside the academic community.<ref name="interleave standard">Archives of Usenet posts at [[Google Groups]] prior to the [[WWW|beginning of the WWW]] (1993).</ref>

Interleaving was also common originally in e-mail, because many internet users had been exposed to Usenet newsgroups and other [[Internet forum]]s, where it is still used.{{Citation needed|date=March 2009}} The style became less common for email after the opening of the internet to commercial and non-academic personal use.{{Citation needed|date=September 2010}} One possible reason is the large number of casual e-mail users that entered the scene at that time.{{Citation needed|date=March 2009}}  Another possible reason is the inadequate support provided by the reply function of some [[webmail]] readers, which either do not automatically insert a copy of the original message into the reply, or do so without any quoting prefix [[#Quoted line prefix|level indicators]].{{Citation needed|date=March 2009}}  Finally, most forums, wiki discussion pages, and [[blog]]s (such as [[Slashdot]]) essentially impose the bottom-post format, by displaying all recent messages in chronological order.{{Citation needed|date=September 2010}}. Interleaving continues to be used on technical mailing lists where clarity within complex threads is important.{{Citation needed|date=January 2012}}.

===Top-posting===
<!-- This section is linked from [[Netiquette]] -->
In ''top-posting'' style, the original message is included verbatim, with the reply above it.  It is sometimes referred to by the acronym ''TOFU'' ("text over, fullquote under"). It has also been colloquially referred to as ''Jeopardy!'' reply style: as in the game show's signature clue/response format, the answers precede the question.

Example:
 No problem.  6pm it is then.
 Jim <span style="color:red">
 <br>
 -------- Original Message --------
 '''From:''' Danny <danny@example.com>
 '''Sent:''' Tuesday, October 16, 2007 10:01 AM
 '''To:''' Jim <jim@example.com>
 '''Subject:''' RE: Job
 <br>
 Whoa!  Hold on.  I have a job scheduled at 5:30 which mails out
 a report to key tech staff.  Could you please push it back an hour?
 Danny</span><span style="color:blue">
 <br>
 -------- Original Message --------
 '''From:''' Jim <jim@example.com>
 '''Sent:''' Tuesday, October 16, 2007 9:40 AM
 '''To:''' Danny <danny@example.com>
 '''Subject:''' Job
 <br>
 I'm going to suspend the mail service for approx. thirty
 minutes tonight, starting at 5pm, to install some updates
 and important fixes.
 Jim</span>

Top-posting preserves an apparently unmodified transcript of a branch in the conversation.  Often all replies line up in a single branch of a conversation.  The top of the text shows the latest replies.  This appears to be advantageous for business correspondence, where an e-mail thread can dupe others into believing it is an "official" record.{{citation needed|date=April 2016}}

By contrast, excessive indentation of interleaved and bottom posting may turn difficult to interpret.  If the participants have different stature such as manager vs. employee or consultant vs. client, one person's cutting apart another person's words without the full context may look impolite or cause misunderstanding.{{citation needed|date=April 2021}}

In the earlier days of [[Usenet]] informal discussions where everyone was an equal encouraged bottom-posting.  Until the mid-1990s, posts in a net.newcomers newsgroup insisted on interleaving replies.  Usenet [[Comp.* hierarchy|''comp.lang'' hierarchy]], especially comp.lang.c and comp.lang.c++ insisted on the same as of the 2010s. The [[Alt.* hierarchy|''alt'' hierarchy]] tolerated top-posting. Newer online participants, especially those with limited experience of Usenet, tend to be less sensitive to arguments about posting style.

Top-posting can be problematic on mailing lists with ongoing discussions which eventually require someone to act on the top-posted material. For example, top-posting "Those changes look ok to me, go ahead and make them" can be very inconvenient, as readers may need to read through a long email trail to know which changes the top-poster is referring to. Inter-leaving the text directly below the text describing the changes is much more convenient in these cases.

Users of [[handheld device|mobile devices]], like [[smartphone]]s, are encouraged to use top-posting because the devices may only download the beginning of a message for viewing.  The rest of the message is only retrieved when needed, which takes additional download time.  Putting the relevant content at the beginning of the message requires less bandwidth, less time, and less scrolling for the user.<ref>[http://danwarne.com/my-rapidly-growing-email-habit/ My rapidly growing email habit] ({{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070119091029/http://danwarne.com/my-rapidly-growing-email-habit/ |date=January 19, 2007 }}) blog post.</ref><ref>[http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/postfix/2001-07/1670.html  Stopping SirCam] ({{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928035410/http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/postfix/2001-07/1670.html |date=September 28, 2007 }}) postfix.org mailing list.</ref><ref>[http://mail.jabber.org/pipermail/jdev/2006-June/083465.html Top Posting and Mobiles]—[[Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol|Jabber]] mailing list.</ref>

Top-posting is a natural consequence of the behavior of the "reply" function in many current e-mail readers, such as [[Microsoft Outlook]], [[Gmail]], and others. By default, these programs insert into the reply message a copy of the original message (without headers and often without any extra indentation or quotation markers), and position the editing [[cursor (computers)|cursor]] above it.{{dubious|reason=Positioning the cursor above makes perfect sense for bottom-posting as well, as the quoted text must be edited and replied to from top to bottom.|date=March 2023}} Moreover, a bug present on most flavours of Microsoft Outlook caused the quotation markers to be lost when replying in plain text to a message that was originally sent in HTML/RTF.{{Citation needed|date=April 2011}} 
For these and possibly other reasons, many users seem to accept top-posting as the "standard" reply style.

Partially because of Microsoft's influence, top-posting is very common on [[Electronic mailing list|mailing list]]s and in personal e-mail.<ref name="Intelligently">{{Cite web
 |url          = http://content.techrepublic.com.com/5254-6257-0.html?forumID=99&threadID=173898&messageID=1928226&id=3923716
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20080308060319/http://content.techrepublic.com.com/5254-6257-0.html?forumID=99&threadID=173898&messageID=1928226&id=3923716
 |url-status     = dead
 |archive-date = 2008-03-08
 |title        = reply intelligently to e-mail
 |date         = 2006-01-19
 |format       = blog post and responses
 |work         = TechRepublic
 |access-date   = 2013-04-12
}}</ref><ref name="Top posting freebsd">{{Cite web
| url = http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2004-March/thread.html#40694
| title = Top posting
| access-date = 2007-01-11

| date = 2004-03-19
| format = Mailing list thread
| work = [[FreeBSD]] mailing list
}}</ref><ref name="Microsoftish">{{Cite web
| url = http://lists.suse.com/archive/suse-linux-e/2002-Oct/index.html#1698
| title = Top-posting is so Microsoftish
| access-date = 2007-01-11

| date = 2002-10-13
| format = Mailing list thread
| work = SuSE Linux English discussion
|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20041224190115/http://lists.suse.com/archive/suse-linux-e/2002-Oct/1698.html
|archive-date=2004-12-24 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book
|last=Kennedy
|first=Angus J.
|author2=Peter Buckley |author3=Duncan Clark
 |editor=Andrew Dickson
|title= The Rough Guide to the Internet 9
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=umvBESswHH8C&pg=RA5-PA241
|format=Google Book Search
|access-date=2007-01-11
|edition=2004
|date=October 2003
|publisher=Penguin Books
|location=London
|isbn=1-84353-101-1
|pages=241
|quote=It used to be taboo to reply at the top of a message ("top posting") until Microsoft made it the default setting}}</ref>

Top-posting has always been the standard format for forwarding a message to a third party, in which case the comments at the top (if any) are a "cover note" for the recipient.

===Bottom-posting===
In the "bottom-posting" style, the reply is appended to a full or partial copy of the original message. The name bottom-posting is sometimes used for inline-style replies, and indeed the two formats are the same when only one point is being replied to.

{{anchor|Bottom-posting-example|||}}
 At 10.01am Wednesday, Danny wrote:<span style="color:red">
 > At 9.40am Wednesday, Jim wrote:</span><span style="color:blue">
 >> I'm going to suspend the mail service for approx. thirty
 >> minutes tonight, starting at 5pm, to install some updates
 >> and important fixes.</span><span style="color:red">
 <br>
 > Whoa!  Hold on.  I have a job scheduled at 5:30 which mails out
 > a report to key tech staff.  Could you push it back an hour?
 >
 > By the way, which systems will be updated? I had some network
 > problems after last week's update.  Will I have to reboot?
 </span>
 No problems. 6pm it is then.
 <br>
 Basically, I will update our WWW server and firewall.
 No, you won't have to reboot.

Bottom-posting, like inline replies, encourages posters to trim the original message as much as possible, so that readers are not forced to scroll past irrelevant text, or text that they have already seen in the original message:

 At 10.01am Wednesday, Danny wrote:<span style="color:red">
 > Could you push it back an hour?
 > [...] which systems will be updated?
 > [...] Will I have to reboot?
 </span>
 No problems. 6pm it is then.
 Basically, I will update our WWW server and firewall.
 No, you won't have to reboot.

===Choosing the proper posting style===
{{More citations needed|section|date=May 2024}}

The choice between interleaved, top and bottom posting generally depends on the forum and on the nature of the message. Some forums (such as personal e-mail) are quite tolerant, in which case the proper style is dictated by taste and effectiveness. One should consider whether the reply will be easily read by the intended recipient(s). Their e-mail interfaces may have different rules for handling quoted line markers and long lines, so a reply that looks readable in one's screen may be jumbled and incorrectly colored on theirs. Blank lines and judicious trimming of the original text may help avoid ambiguity.

The interleaved reply style can require more work in terms of labeling lines, but possibly less work in establishing the context of each reply line. It also keeps the quotes and their replies close to each other and in logical reading order, and encourages trimming of the quoted material to the bare minimum. This style makes it easier for readers to identify the points of the original message that are being replied to; in particular, whether the reply misunderstood or ignored some point of the original text. It also gives the sender freedom to arrange the quoted parts in any order, and to provide a single comment to quotations from two or more separate messages, even if these did not include each other.

Top- and bottom-posting are sometimes compared to traditional [[letter (message)|written correspondence]] in that the response is a single continuous text, and the whole original is appended only to clarify which letter is being replied to. [[Customer service]] e-mail practices, in particular, often require that all points be addressed in a clear manner without quoting, while the original e-mail message may be included as an attachment. Including the whole original message may be necessary also when a new correspondent is included in an ongoing discussion.<ref>[http://mailformat.dan.info/quoting/top-posting.html Quoting: Top Posting]—Dan's Mail Format Site</ref><ref>[http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200509/sensible_email/ Sensible email] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061017180623/http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200509/sensible_email/ |date=October 17, 2006 }}—Blog post and discussion</ref> Especially in business correspondence, an entire message thread may need to be forwarded to a third party for handling or discussion. On the other hand, in environments where the entire discussion is accessible to new readers (such as [[newsgroup]]s or [[online forum]]s), full inclusion of previous messages is inappropriate; if quoting is necessary, the interleaved style is probably best.

If the original message is to be quoted in full, for any reason, bottom-posting is usually the most appropriate format—because it preserves the logical order of the replies and is consistent with the Western reading direction from top to bottom.

It is not uncommon during discussions concerning top-posting vs. bottom-posting to hear quotes from "Netiquette Guidelines (RFC 1855)". While many RFCs are vetted and approved though a committee process, some RFCs, such as RFC 1855, are just "Informational" and in reality, sometimes just personal opinions. (Additional information on "Informational" RFCs can be found in RFC 2026, under "4.2.2 Informational" and "4.2.3 Procedures for Experimental and Informational RFCs".) The nature of RFC 1855 should be considered while reading the following discussion.

According to RFC 1855, a message can begin with an abbreviated summary; i.e. a post can begin with a paraphrasing instead of quoting selectively. Specifically, it says:

{{blockquote|If you are sending a reply to a message or a posting be sure you summarize the original at the top of the message, or include just enough text of the original to give a context. This will make sure readers understand when they start to read your response. Since NetNews, especially, is proliferated by distributing the postings from one host to another, it is possible to see a response to a message before seeing the original. Giving context helps everyone. But do not include the entire original!}}

Interleaved reply combined with top-posting combines the advantages of both styles. However this also results in some portions of the original message being quoted twice, which takes up extra space and may confuse the reader.

In forwarding it is sometimes preferred to include the entire original message (including all headers) as a [[MIME]] attachment, while in top-posted replies these are often trimmed or replaced by an [[#Attribution lines|attribution line]]. An untrimmed quoted message is a weaker form of transcript, as key pieces of meta information are destroyed. (This is why an [[Internet service provider|ISP]]'s [[Postmaster (computing)|Postmaster]] will typically insist on a ''forwarded'' copy of any problematic e-mail, rather than a quote.) These forwarded messages are displayed in the same way as top-posting in some mail clients. Top-posting is viewed as seriously destructive to [[Electronic mailing list|mailing-list]] digests, where multiple levels of top-posting are difficult to skip. The worst case would be top-posting while including an entire digest as the original message.

Some believe that "top-posting" is appropriate for interpersonal e-mail, but inline posting should always be applied to threaded discussions such as newsgroups.

This example is occasionally used in mailing lists to mock and discourage top-posting:<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/mailinglists/etiquette.php|title=ARM Linux - Mailing Lists - Etiquette|work=linux.org.uk}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.idallen.com/topposting.html|title=Top Posting and Bottom Posting|work=idallen.com}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://what-is-what.com/what_is/top_posting.html|title=What is Top Posting?|work=what-is-what.com}}</ref>

 Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
 Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
 Top-posting.
 What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

Bottom-posting preserves the logical order of the replies and is consistent with the Western reading direction from top to bottom.

The major argument against bottom-posting is that scrolling down through a post to find a reply is inconvenient, especially for short replies to long messages, and many inexperienced computer users may not know that they need to scroll down to find a reply to their query. When sending an untrimmed bottom-posted message, one might indicate inline replies with a notice at the top such as "I have replied below." However, as many modern mail programs are capable of displaying different levels of quotation with different colors (as seen in the [[#Bottom-posting-example|bottom-posting example]] on this page), this is not so much of an issue any more. Another method to indicate that there is more reply text still to come is to always end your text with a signature line. Then a reader who is familiar with your reply style will know to continue to read until your signature line appears. This method is particularly polite and useful when using the inline reply method, since it tells the reader that your response is complete at the point where your signature line appears.

===Quoting support in popular mail clients===

This widespread policy in business communication made bottom and inline posting so unknown among most users that some of the most popular email programs no longer support the traditional posting style. For example, Microsoft Outlook (when replying to an HTML message), AOL, and Yahoo! make it difficult or impossible to indicate which part of a message is the quoted original or do not let users insert comments between parts of the original. When replying to a plain text message with Microsoft Outlook when configured to plain text mode however, Outlook properly uses Quoted line markers allowing for easy insertion of comments between parts of the original. Unfortunately however, the default mode is HTML and few users bother to change the default settings.

Yahoo! does not have the option "Quote the text of the original message" in Mail Classic, but this setting is retained after turning it on in All-New Mail and then switching back to Mail Classic. Inline replying is broken in Microsoft Outlook, which despite choosing the setting to prefix each line of the original with the "greater-than" character (>) produces a blue line that makes answers inserted between quotes of an [[HTML email]] look like part of the original. The workarounds are to use the setting "read all standard mail in plain text", or to use the "Edit Message" option on the original email and convert it to plain text before replying (then discard the edited version).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://blog.loftninjas.org/2008/08/14/making-outlook-2007-quote-responsibly/|title=Making Outlook 2007 quote responsibly|work=loftninjas.org|date=14 August 2008 }}</ref>