Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 18:29:23 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Norman Saunders Subject: Quoting MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Ospreyers, As owner of MDOsprey, I belong to another list where I can ask questions about problems that are cropping up, etc. I noticed the following information the other day in a message from another list owner about quoting material in message responses and it struck a familiar chord with me. I have bitten my tongue quite a few times (something most of you know is very difficult for me to do) over the past year about this issue. So, without mentioning any names or blaming anyone, here is a set of guidelines I would like all of you to take to heart. Thank you. Norm > Most email programs these days will automatically quote the entire original > message when the user hits "Reply". This is intended as an aid in proper > quoting; you are *not* supposed to simply leave the whole thing intact. The > idea is that you quote only a few lines (as few as possible; the old > standard is not more than three lines to a quote) to indicate the point > you're responding to, then add your reply, then quote the next point, make > your reply to that, and so forth. You *delete* all extraneous text from the > reply. > > Unfortunately, a lot of people who are fairly new online have never learned > this, and seem unable or unwilling to pick it up from context, for whatever > reason. (It's not like anyone ever told *me* how to do it; I simply > observed what others were doing and what made posts more readable vs. what > didn't. Yes, I'm cantankerous; I've been online for 19 years and I'm > *allowed* to be cantankerous.) Anyhow, this lands us with the teeming > hordes who relentlessly quote 15Kb of previous message in order to add two > lines of their own text, include multiple levels of quoting (almost always > a big no-no), top-post (placing their reply *before* the -- usually > unedited -- quoted material), and commit other such gaffes. ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================