[Info-vax] Open Source on OpenVMS - A Progress Report

[JF Mezei]

Bart.Zorn at gmail.com wrote:

> Now I am lost. Can somebody please explain what "top-post" is?

Top post is when a microsoft users fails to reconfigure his software to
abide by usenet netiquette. As a result, when responding to a post, the
software includes all contents of the original post, and the cursor is
positioned at the top of the document where the user types his one or
two line message, oblivious to the fact that there are 5000 lines below it.

Proper etiquete is to keep just enough relevant lines at the top, and
add your response/comments below, and generally, your comments should be
longer than the amount of text you are quoting at the top.

By quoting at the top and responding at bottom, it sets the context
ahead of your reply. When you have your text at the top, you are telling
people to read your text before reading the context.

And you also so risk people automatiocally scrolling to bottom to skin
the long quote, and see that there was no text added at bottom and
ignore the post.