On Sep 13, 2005, at 12:45 PM, Shel Belinkoff wrote:
LONG URL's: Perhaps those posting messages with long URL's can
use Tiny
Url to shorten these addresses .... Please: http://tinyurl.com/
(I find it best to try to post both if it's a long and complex URL.
And yes, when participating in a thread about a photo, the URL to the
photo should always be in every response in the thread.)
BOTTOM POSTING: ...
The question of top vs bottom posting, or in-stream quotation/
responses by section, has been the subject of debate and controversy
on net forums and mailing lists for many years. To adopt one, the
other, or the third explicitly by fiat is dogmatic and likely not
going to work ... some people prefer the "sensible" top to bottom
stream, others prefer to see the net material up top, and for other
situations, like this one, 'in-stream' responses make more sense. (I
try to adopt whatever the standing style is in long threads, and
reorder top to bottom or bottom to top based on how the conversation
flows best.)
TRIMMING MESSAGES: ...
Absolutely. There's no reason to not trim a quotation to the
essential material you're referencing, and it reduces confusion.
This is all part and parcel of longstanding netiquette. One should
look at a message, see what if anything they want to respond to, and
adopt a style of response that is succinct and cogent, presents all
the information necessary for the response to make the point you want
to convey. To do this fosters courtesy to others on the forum through
not wasting bandwidth and improves understandability, reduces
confusion. (Secondarily, it makes the digest form of a mailing list a
lot more useful. Much less replicated material to wade through when
you're trying to follow a thread.)
It's a lofty goal... ;-) Thanks for bringing up the subject.
Godfrey
