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-   -   Change top postings to bottom postings? (http://www.outlookbanter.com/outlook-express/94843-change-top-postings-bottom-postings.html)

Walter R.[_2_] September 12th 09 10:17 PM

Change top postings to bottom postings?
 
I am still using ie6 for newsgroups. Some newsgroups get mad as hell when
they see someone top-post to a reply. Ie6 always top-posts. Can this be
changed to bottom postings?

Thanks

--
Walter
www.rationality.net
-



Bruce Hagen September 12th 09 10:22 PM

Change top postings to bottom postings?
 
Choose your weapon.

OE-QuoteFix:
http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/oe-quotefix/

Or a reg hack:

For XP/SP2 or 3 only, you can control top and bottom posting with this
registry change.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities\{GUID for the
identity}\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express\5.0

Right click on a blank spot in the right pane | New | Dword and create a new
DWORD and name it:

Reply At End

To bottom post, set the value to 1
To top post, set the value to 0
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP [Mail]
Imperial Beach, CA


"Walter R." wrote in message
...
I am still using ie6 for newsgroups. Some newsgroups get mad as hell when
they see someone top-post to a reply. Ie6 always top-posts. Can this be
changed to bottom postings?

Thanks

--
Walter
www.rationality.net
-



Bruce Hagen September 12th 09 10:22 PM

Change top postings to bottom postings?
 
Choose your weapon.

OE-QuoteFix:
http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/oe-quotefix/

Or a reg hack:

For XP/SP2 or 3 only, you can control top and bottom posting with this
registry change.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities\{GUID for the
identity}\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express\5.0

Right click on a blank spot in the right pane | New | Dword and create a new
DWORD and name it:

Reply At End

To bottom post, set the value to 1
To top post, set the value to 0
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP [Mail]
Imperial Beach, CA


"Walter R." wrote in message
...
I am still using ie6 for newsgroups. Some newsgroups get mad as hell when
they see someone top-post to a reply. Ie6 always top-posts. Can this be
changed to bottom postings?

Thanks

--
Walter
www.rationality.net
-



Walter R.[_2_] September 12th 09 10:46 PM

Change top postings to bottom postings?
 
Thank you, Bruce.

Not sure if I really want to change it. What is the consensus at this time?
Top or Bottom?

--
Walter
www.rationality.net
-
"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
Choose your weapon.

OE-QuoteFix:
http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/oe-quotefix/

Or a reg hack:

For XP/SP2 or 3 only, you can control top and bottom posting with this
registry change.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities\{GUID for the
identity}\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express\5.0

Right click on a blank spot in the right pane | New | Dword and create a
new DWORD and name it:

Reply At End

To bottom post, set the value to 1
To top post, set the value to 0
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP [Mail]
Imperial Beach, CA


"Walter R." wrote in message
...
I am still using ie6 for newsgroups. Some newsgroups get mad as hell when
they see someone top-post to a reply. Ie6 always top-posts. Can this be
changed to bottom postings?

Thanks

--
Walter
www.rationality.net
-





Walter R.[_2_] September 12th 09 10:46 PM

Change top postings to bottom postings?
 

Thank you, Bruce.

Not sure if I really want to change it. What is the consensus at this time?
Top or Bottom?

--
Walter
www.rationality.net
-
"Bruce Hagen" wrote in message
...
Choose your weapon.

OE-QuoteFix:
http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/oe-quotefix/

Or a reg hack:

For XP/SP2 or 3 only, you can control top and bottom posting with this
registry change.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities\{GUID for the
identity}\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express\5.0

Right click on a blank spot in the right pane | New | Dword and create a
new DWORD and name it:

Reply At End

To bottom post, set the value to 1
To top post, set the value to 0
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP [Mail]
Imperial Beach, CA


"Walter R." wrote in message
...
I am still using ie6 for newsgroups. Some newsgroups get mad as hell when
they see someone top-post to a reply. Ie6 always top-posts. Can this be
changed to bottom postings?

Thanks

--
Walter
www.rationality.net
-





VanguardLH[_2_] September 12th 09 10:46 PM

Change top postings to bottom postings?
 
Walter R. wrote:

I am still using ie6 for newsgroups.


IE6 is a web browser, not an NNTP (Network News Transfer Protocol)
client. If using a web browser then your NSP (Newsgroups Service
Provider) has provided a webnews-for-dummies interface that gateways to
Usenet. More like you are using Outlook Express.

Some newsgroups get mad as hell when they see someone top-post to a
reply. Ie6 always top-posts.


Not necessarily. Most users never bother to read the doc(s) for the
service packs to know what are in them.

Can this be changed to bottom postings?


One way is to remember to re-sort the quoted content to be in the order
desired. The first post in a thread cannot indicate posting order. The
first-level replies show which posting order that user employed. Stick
with that order since that is most polite. If the 1st respondent
top-posted then follow suit. Same if they bottom-posted. Don't jumble
the posting order, especially if you are at the 4th level, or higher, in
a subthread. However, if you find there are lots of hard-time old
timers that declare only bottom-posting is required and they constitute
the majority of the community in that newsgroup then you can always
position the cursor at the end and add your reply there.

Outlook Express is a long-dead product. Development ended back in 2002.
There have been only security updates since then with the exception that
settings were added to specify where to position the quoted content and
your signature (i.e., to change the default behavior of top-posting to
bottom-posting). These are registry edits; that is, they are not
available via the config UI for Outlook Express.

Service Pack 2 for Windows XP introduced registry settings where you can
decide if OE top- or bottom-posts and where the signature gets placed
(which should always be at the end regardless of top- or bottom-posting,
and something even many MVPs violate).

From KB 886340:
"List of Outlook Express fixes that are in Windows XP Service Pack 2 and
in Windows XP PC Tablet Edition 2005"

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/886340

However, as I recall, this also changes the default positions in e-mail.
While the old-time netiquette had you bottom-post (but also assumed you
would snip out the irrelevant fluff in the quoted content in your
reply), the normal or expect style in e-mail is to place new content at
the top (i.e., your reply goes at the top); however, most times the
quoted content in e-mails is superfluous as you are replying to the
sender who still has a copy of their original e-mail. Quoting in Usenet
was to compensate for articles not getting peered (missing or slow)
between NNTP servers. I believe at one time that it was also possible
for the articles to come out of order, possibly due to lags in different
peering routes between NNTP servers. Nowadays the quoting is only
needed to the level necessary to give context to your response (and many
times isn't needed at all except by those that cite netiquette without
regard to current stats that articles are peered quickly and reliably
nowadays).

Regardless of whether you top- or bottom-post, re-sort the order of the
quoted posts to match your posting order. Just because you bottom-post
doesn't mean you leave the quoted content in top-posting order or as a
jumbled mix of top- and bottom-posted content. Make all the content of
your post, including the quoted content, be in the SAME order that you
chose for a posting order. Being lazy is not an excuse for proper
quoting. Being lazy is not an excuse for not snipping the irrelevant
quoted content from your reply. Not snipping is the lame excuse the
top-posters use as to why they top-post. They're too lazy to snip the
quoted content so they want to sweep it under the rug. If they properly
snipped then it would be irrelevant that they top-post and they'd find
bottom-posting allowed following the [much shorter after snipped] post.

While there are arguments regarding where the quoted content goes and
where your reply content goes (i.e., top- versus bottom-posting but also
in re-sorting the quoted content to match that posting order), there is
no rational argument that the signature should ever appear at other than
then end of your post. Why? There exists by de facto standard (not RFC
standard) a signature delimiter line ("-- "), also called the sigdash.
This delineates the start of the signature. There is *no* end-of-sig
delimiter line. Once "-- " appears in the body of post starting at
column 1 of a line then EVERYTHING after that sigdash is your signature.
If you put your signature after your top-posted reply, it is still
before the quoted content which means all the quoted content becomes
part of your signature. Some NNTP client, forum options (that run
gateways to Usenet), or webnews-for-dummies interfaces to Usenet may be
configured to strip out signatures. That means all the quoted content
that you had after the sigdash gets stripped out. So signatures ALWAYS
go at the *end* of your post. Even some MVPs repeatedly violate this
simple logic. Typically those MVPs that place their signatures at the
wrong place are Outlook Express users.

VanguardLH[_2_] September 12th 09 10:46 PM

Change top postings to bottom postings?
 
Walter R. wrote:

I am still using ie6 for newsgroups.


IE6 is a web browser, not an NNTP (Network News Transfer Protocol)
client. If using a web browser then your NSP (Newsgroups Service
Provider) has provided a webnews-for-dummies interface that gateways to
Usenet. More like you are using Outlook Express.

Some newsgroups get mad as hell when they see someone top-post to a
reply. Ie6 always top-posts.


Not necessarily. Most users never bother to read the doc(s) for the
service packs to know what are in them.

Can this be changed to bottom postings?


One way is to remember to re-sort the quoted content to be in the order
desired. The first post in a thread cannot indicate posting order. The
first-level replies show which posting order that user employed. Stick
with that order since that is most polite. If the 1st respondent
top-posted then follow suit. Same if they bottom-posted. Don't jumble
the posting order, especially if you are at the 4th level, or higher, in
a subthread. However, if you find there are lots of hard-time old
timers that declare only bottom-posting is required and they constitute
the majority of the community in that newsgroup then you can always
position the cursor at the end and add your reply there.

Outlook Express is a long-dead product. Development ended back in 2002.
There have been only security updates since then with the exception that
settings were added to specify where to position the quoted content and
your signature (i.e., to change the default behavior of top-posting to
bottom-posting). These are registry edits; that is, they are not
available via the config UI for Outlook Express.

Service Pack 2 for Windows XP introduced registry settings where you can
decide if OE top- or bottom-posts and where the signature gets placed
(which should always be at the end regardless of top- or bottom-posting,
and something even many MVPs violate).

From KB 886340:
"List of Outlook Express fixes that are in Windows XP Service Pack 2 and
in Windows XP PC Tablet Edition 2005"

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/886340

However, as I recall, this also changes the default positions in e-mail.
While the old-time netiquette had you bottom-post (but also assumed you
would snip out the irrelevant fluff in the quoted content in your
reply), the normal or expect style in e-mail is to place new content at
the top (i.e., your reply goes at the top); however, most times the
quoted content in e-mails is superfluous as you are replying to the
sender who still has a copy of their original e-mail. Quoting in Usenet
was to compensate for articles not getting peered (missing or slow)
between NNTP servers. I believe at one time that it was also possible
for the articles to come out of order, possibly due to lags in different
peering routes between NNTP servers. Nowadays the quoting is only
needed to the level necessary to give context to your response (and many
times isn't needed at all except by those that cite netiquette without
regard to current stats that articles are peered quickly and reliably
nowadays).

Regardless of whether you top- or bottom-post, re-sort the order of the
quoted posts to match your posting order. Just because you bottom-post
doesn't mean you leave the quoted content in top-posting order or as a
jumbled mix of top- and bottom-posted content. Make all the content of
your post, including the quoted content, be in the SAME order that you
chose for a posting order. Being lazy is not an excuse for proper
quoting. Being lazy is not an excuse for not snipping the irrelevant
quoted content from your reply. Not snipping is the lame excuse the
top-posters use as to why they top-post. They're too lazy to snip the
quoted content so they want to sweep it under the rug. If they properly
snipped then it would be irrelevant that they top-post and they'd find
bottom-posting allowed following the [much shorter after snipped] post.

While there are arguments regarding where the quoted content goes and
where your reply content goes (i.e., top- versus bottom-posting but also
in re-sorting the quoted content to match that posting order), there is
no rational argument that the signature should ever appear at other than
then end of your post. Why? There exists by de facto standard (not RFC
standard) a signature delimiter line ("-- "), also called the sigdash.
This delineates the start of the signature. There is *no* end-of-sig
delimiter line. Once "-- " appears in the body of post starting at
column 1 of a line then EVERYTHING after that sigdash is your signature.
If you put your signature after your top-posted reply, it is still
before the quoted content which means all the quoted content becomes
part of your signature. Some NNTP client, forum options (that run
gateways to Usenet), or webnews-for-dummies interfaces to Usenet may be
configured to strip out signatures. That means all the quoted content
that you had after the sigdash gets stripped out. So signatures ALWAYS
go at the *end* of your post. Even some MVPs repeatedly violate this
simple logic. Typically those MVPs that place their signatures at the
wrong place are Outlook Express users.

N. Miller September 12th 09 11:36 PM

Change top postings to bottom postings?
 
On Sat, 12 Sep 2009 14:46:03 -0700, Walter R. wrote:

Not sure if I really want to change it. What is the consensus at this time?
Top or Bottom?


For the Microsoft help groups, top posting is preferred (and I prefer to
defy convention). For most of the rest of the Usenet, bottom posting is
preferred (but you may choose to defy convention, if you are willing to take
the flak). There is no consensus on which is best; there are equally valid
arguments for each.

--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum

N. Miller September 12th 09 11:36 PM

Change top postings to bottom postings?
 
On Sat, 12 Sep 2009 14:46:03 -0700, Walter R. wrote:

Not sure if I really want to change it. What is the consensus at this time?
Top or Bottom?


For the Microsoft help groups, top posting is preferred (and I prefer to
defy convention). For most of the rest of the Usenet, bottom posting is
preferred (but you may choose to defy convention, if you are willing to take
the flak). There is no consensus on which is best; there are equally valid
arguments for each.

--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum

PA Bear [MS MVP] September 13th 09 12:06 AM

Change top postings to bottom postings?
 
As top-posting is the default in OE and as this is a Microsoft newsgroup,
top-posting is the convention here.

PS: Your headers (Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.5512) tell us that
your WinXP computer is NOT fully-patched at Windows Update! Why isn't it?


Walter R. wrote:
Thank you, Bruce.

Not sure if I really want to change it. What is the consensus at this
time?
Top or Bottom?

Choose your weapon.

OE-QuoteFix:
http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/oe-quotefix/

Or a reg hack:

For XP/SP2 or 3 only, you can control top and bottom posting with this
registry change.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities\{GUID for the
identity}\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express\5.0

Right click on a blank spot in the right pane | New | Dword and create a
new DWORD and name it:

Reply At End

To bottom post, set the value to 1
To top post, set the value to 0
--

Bruce Hagen
MS-MVP [Mail]
Imperial Beach, CA


"Walter R." wrote in message
...
I am still using ie6 for newsgroups. Some newsgroups get mad as hell
when
they see someone top-post to a reply. Ie6 always top-posts. Can this be
changed to bottom postings?

Thanks

--
Walter
www.rationality.net
-




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