From: Donald S. Roberts (don@hummellawfirm.com)
Date: Fri Feb 28 2003 - 15:43:50 CST
> From: Robert Haig
> General nettiquite calls for trimming of the quoted text to only parts
> pertainent to your reply. I usually prefer to have the
> quoted text and the
> reply text interspersed with the quoted text indented,
> usually with a '>'
> in front of each line of quoted text.
>
If you see a mailing list in digest mode, quoting is usually unnecessary.
If, as with the majority, you get the messages individually, failure to
quote makes the messages really confusing.
Here are the problems that not quoting causes:
1) messages come out of order depending on their routing - no quoting, and
you have no clue what the sender is talking about. The message quoted is a
perfect example, it doesn't quote the prior sender, and if I had not seen
that message first, I wouldn't have a clue what he is talking about.
2)multiple discussions are taking place simultaneously. Thus, you get a
reply to discussion A, then a reply to discussion B, then a second reply to
discussion A. WIthout quoting in the latter two (unless you have a mailer
that can thread the conversations), you can't really tell which conversation
is being carried on. Rather destroys the value of the list, that.
The real problem occurs when someone quotes but leaves in *EVERYTHING* (like
that excessively long list info at the end of most philmont messages, then
the list server adds a *second* one). Then, a lot of band width is used up
for no info.
Thus, best solution is to quote, but use as little of the prior message as
needed to give the quote context.
In outlook, if you do not have quoting turned on, it is a real PITA to get
quotes for a reply. Outlook closes the message the moment you hit reply,
and you have to go back and reopen it in another window, then cut and paste.
If quoting is on, it is much easier to cut just the excess, leave the
context and type the reply.
Participants too lazy (or just not knowledgeable) to cut the excess are the
real culprits, not people who include partial quotes.
Regards
Don Roberts
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