From: James C. McMaster (Jim) (mcmasjc@tatanka.stortek.com)
Date: Wed Jan 23 2002 - 11:05:54 CST
In message <20020122190754.88166.qmail@web11603.mail.yahoo.com>, Jeff
Stauffer
said:
>
> If you are replying to a posting coming from this list, please do not
> include the original post in your reply. Everyone has already read it,
> and the subject of the posting should be enough to identify what you
> are talking about. After you hit the 'reply' button, delete the text of
> the original post before you add your comments.
>
I disagree to some extent. Certainly, you should edit the reply down, but
you should leave enough context so people can tell exactly what you are
talking about. Sometimes, people respond to a posting days later.
Sometimes, there is more than one point to address...like in this message.
Very often, the discussion strays from the original topic and no one changes
the Subject line. All these can make conversations extremely difficult to
follow. Leaving a small amount of the original material can solve these
problems.
On the other hand, failing to trim extraneous material is pure laziness.
Even worse are the people who respond to a message in a digest by leaving the
entire digest in the reply.
> Also, please turn off your HTML email formatting, and send in plain
> text only. That will eliminate the extra copy of your post that
> contains all the codes and gibberish. There are many different email
> applications so I can't tell you how to do that in all of them, but
> usually there is an 'options' or 'preferences' list where you tell it
> which way to send. Or you could ask your teenager for help! ;)
>
I agree 100%. You never should assume anyone on a mailing list can read
anything except plain text. All the pretty formatting is just a waste of
time and bandwidth. For people reading a digest, it is pure torture.
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