Hi
I really enjoy picking up tips and leraning from the many people who
contribute to the list. However, in recent times that it is extremely
difficult sometimes to find a couple of lines of text some one has
replied with amongst maybe a hundred lines of quoted text. Below are
a few tips which I've taken from the Usenet Mailing List Etiquette
FAQ which you may consider adopting.
Dave Watkins
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Taken from the Usenet Mailing List Etiquette FAQ
http://www.gweep.ca/~edmonds/usenet/ml-etiquette.html
When replying, should I quote the previous message?
Most certainly. You should always provide some context to your
replies so that people who may not have been following the thread
closely, or who have other things on their minds will easily be able
to determine what you're talking about.
However, when quoting, be very careful to edit the quoted sections
down to the bare minimum of text needed to maintain the context for
your reply. There is very little on a mailing list that is more
annoying than paging through a few pages of quoted text only to read
a few lines at the end. Also be careful that you clearly indicate
what text you're quoting (as opposed to what you're writing), and if
possible, cite the author of the original text.
If your mail program wants to attach the whole message you're
replying to on the end of your replies, please do not let it do this
if you can possibly avoid it. It is a good thing to include excerpts
from previous messages with your replies to maintain a logical flow
of discussion, but it is almost always a bad thing to include the
entire text of a message being replied to, be it at the start or end
of your reply.
