Nowadays a lot of people reply in a way to
email or postings on Usenet which I consider
wrong: they put their reply above the quoted
original writing (also called top
posting). However, there is a very easy recipe
to reply in what I (and many others) consider
the right way:
A recipe for replying to mail and Usenet posts
Quote the entire message you're replying to
Delete blank lines inserted at the very top of the reply (if any)
If your signature is inserted on top, delete it
Move the cursor to the line after the name of the author you're replying to
Read each quoted line from top to bottom
If the line is not important for the reply, delete it
If you delete several lines in a row, you might want to use a marker like: [..], ..., [cut], [snip]
If you delete several lines but a hint for the context is required, put a short sentence between []
If you reach a point that a reply is needed insert a blank line
Start your reply on the line after the blank line
When finished, go to 5. if there are quoted lines following
If the program doesn't delete the signature of the person you're replying to, delete it yourself
Reread carefully the message and try to delete more quoted lines
The whole idea of this recipe is that when you print
your reply, and reread it after 3 months you should be
able to read the reply top to bottom without much
effort, being able to understand it, and know whom
you're replying to.
If you reply to a message that has already quoted lines
in it, make sure that the author of those lines is also
mentioned in your reply unless you deleted all the lines
he/she has written in your reply.
