Reply above quoted message

When replying to messages, you may want your reply text to appear above (or below) the quoted text by default. This can be set differently for each account. Go to "Tools -> Account Settings" (in Mozilla Suite: "Edit -> Newsgroup & Account Settings"), and then for the account you want to change select "Composition & Addressing". Using the drop-down list on the right, choose the reply position you want to use and click "OK". There is also an option to choose whether signature blocks should go at the very bottom of the message (the default), or directly beneath a top-posted response (above the quoted material). Note that if the signature is placed above a quoted message, the separator line ("-- ") is not used, as this would cause some mail clients to strip off everything below it upon replying.

Traditional netiquette (especially on Usenet and mailing lists) is to reply contextually beneath quoted material, trimming down the quotes to the minimum needed to establish context. This does not always put your entire reply beneath all of the quoted material, since if you are replying to multiple paragraphs, each section of the reply would be beneath the quote of the paragraph to which it is responding. Some people prefer to start their cursor at the top of the message in order to facilitate moving down through the message and trimming the quotes before typing replies contextually. In this case, they would place the signature block at the very bottom of the message.

External links

• Dan's Mail Format Site: information on mail reply and quoting format
• Wikipedia: Top Posting