Re: Stop reposting the whole message thread

[The Wizard of Oz <wizard@emeraldcity.gov>]

On Sun, 08 Feb 2004 07:08:22 -0600, Ed Eastman wrote:

> I get tired of scrolling down a long reply only to find one line of 
> commend relating to only one line of the message thread.
> 
<snip> 
> Thankx,
> Ed

	Strictly speaking, I thought a lot of this was addressed in a nettiquette
document somewhere. You are correct. People should remove unnecessary
parts of quoted messages. If the quoted message can be summarised in a
couple of words then it should be done so before the reply. If no summary
is required for clarity (as in this case) then don't put anything in. The
whole idea of having quoted text is to remind people what was discussed
earlier. There is no need to quote the entire text of a multi-hundred line
message.

	As I recall this same document also suggested placing relevant comments
in the quoted message on new lines so as not to confuse who wrote what.
They then went on to say if there were nothing added within the message,
any response should be at the bottom (as I am doing here). As an aside,
the M$ style of doing things has the reply at the top with the entire
quoted message(s) below.

	I don't know for sure, but I think http://www.textfiles.com has the
document somewhere on their site.

	For a small (less than 20 line) message, I don't think anybody really
cares. With larger messages, people should really look at removing the
irrelevant parts.

				Later
				Mike