Karl Warner wrote:
All,

Are there any rules, conventions or etiquette for posting in a newsgroup?
Where might I find such? I am new at this and have been reading you for the
past six months. For example, I am curious about posting at the top or
bottom of a reply. I do not really see any pattern. I do not anticipate
posting much but do not want to offend.

--- Karl Warner

Some newsgroups have FAQs, I don't know if this one has. A few rules:

--- Single most important rule: Be Paranoid About Security! ---

-- Use a good virus scanner, and set it to scan all your messages,
incoming and outgoing. (This is even more important for e-mail);
-- use a spyware sniffer;
-- use a firewall;
-- scan and clean your machine regularly.

Otherwise, here are a few etiquette guidelines:

a) make your subject line as descriptive as possible, especially when
asking for help or information.

b) snip (delete) parts of the post that aren't relevant to your reply.

c) "bottom posting" is preferred, ie below the post you reply to. Some
people get foamy at the mouth when they see a top post, I just get
mildly irritated.

d) be polite, which means mostly "Give the other poster the benefit of
the doubt." OTOH, if someone gets abusive, it's your decision whether to
give as good as you got. But I ignore flame-wars, and usually filter out
senders of abuse, regardless of who started it.

e) use emoticons: nobody can hear your tone of voice. :-)

f) try to be brief.

g) post pictures to "binaries" newsgroups, not to text-only ones (like
this one.) Many ISPs actually remove binaries from posts, or block such
posts entirely.

h) set your browser/newsreader to send text only -- not HTML. Some
newsreaders treat HTML as attachments, some people have set their
newsreaders to reject HTML as possible virus carriers, etc.

That's about it.

HTH