Jeff, Don, all, There is a happy medium, which I've found working very well on other lists I manage/moderate. This is to include only the relevant portions of the message one is responding to. Short snippets, that one might mark off using chevrons, or something like:
<snip> ...............blah blah blah ..... <snip> This involves modest additional effort, but improves communication significantly. Also, after messages have been replied and re-replied several times, I tend to chop off the oldest portions of the dialogue, since the dialogue often wanders off from the initial message. When this does happen, I remember to change the "Subject" so that it properly reflects the current state of the discussion. A better method -- in some ways -- is to set up a threaded (hierarchically indented) discussion on the web or via Usenet. Disadvantages include: not as simple and convenient as email, and hence, perhaps not universally available or accessible. Also it's not too difficult to abuse the threaded structure so that it loses its key value. I see more abuse than proper use of threaded discussion structures. So ..... for whatever it's worth ... Murli PS: The choicest punishment should be reserved for (and let me emphasize that there are none such on this list) those who forward a joke or story for the 200,000th time, creating a mile long message which consists almost entirely of useless header fields. Then again, such messages might be of value to sociologists. At 01:27 PM 5/6/99 -0800, you wrote: > Jeff, Just wanted you to know I heard you. I will delete the text of > the message I am responding to. > > Don .......................................... Murli Nagasundaram, Ph.D., Assoc. Prof., Computer Information Systems College of Business, Boise State University, Boise, ID 83725-1615, USA vox: 208-426-3905; fax:(208) 426-1135 http://cispom.boisestate.edu/murli/ | mailto:rismu...@cobfac.boisestate.edu You can observe a lot just by watching. -- Yogi Berra