This is really an administrative thing, but as no-one else seems to
care, I thought I'd take it up.
As most of the folk probably noticed, Thomas McGahee
<spam_OUTtom_mcgaheeTakeThisOuTSIGMAIS.COM> posted a relatively long message under the
subject "Should I Post KEYPAD Program?". He was looking for feedback,
and he got some indeed:
Yet all these people failed to find the Delete key on their keybord
and included the _whole_ original message below their replies.
Todays digest was 1464 lines in total, just these 3 posters filled
a significant percenteage of it with quoted original text. This
is a very common netiquette thingy, so please
QUOTE ONLY AS MUCH AS IS ABSOLUTELY NEEDED TO EXPLAIN WHAT YOU ARE
TALKING ABOUT!
Besides that, it is much better to have the quoted text _above_
the text that you are writing.
> as no-one else seems to care, I thought I'd take it up.
The "complainers" amongst us have long since *given up* on this one.
> Besides that, it is much better to have the quoted text _above_
> the text that you are writing.
Not necessarily. If so, only three lines at most, because along the
lines of your principal comment, people really do not want to read the
same thing again in a reply. That's what mailreaders have threading
and/ or intelligent sort-by-subject for. The reader wants to see as
much as possible of the (new) answer one one screen.
While my first sentence above reads nicely after the quote, it would
have arguably, more impact before. The second of course must due to its
structure, come after.
One informative note: For blind and other disabled users, it's by far
easiest to put your response at the top. (The service dogs list I'm on
has this convention, so I tend to post on top as often as on the bottom,
if someone else starts at bottom I usually follow along.) Most of us
aren't blind, but having friends who have to use screen readers, I try
to be flexible - I find I like new posts on top slightly more than at
the bottom, just as well, once I got used to it. And some friends deal
easier with "interspersed" posts (Quotes and responses intermixed) in
private e-mail.
I wouldn't bet against there being blind readers of this list, either
<G>
The PICList "standard" is, I think, to post new text at the bottom
{usually.}
Definitely agree on trimming! (I was afraid this was a "Just Hit
Delete on SPAM" post, until I read it <G>)
One point I want to make: Please DO put enough post in that us folks
who move everything to folders pretty quickly during the day, can
remember what you're talking about (Most days - when there's not a power
failure during my 'Net time as there was this weekend - I get mail
multiple times a day so I've read 159 posts between successive posts in
the same thread <G>) Brief but concise is good.
Mark
Graham Daniel wrote:
>
> I prefer quoted text below, it is for reference, and who wants to scroll
> down a long quote to find the new material ?
> One informative note: For blind and other disabled users, it's by far
> easiest to put your response at the top.
Hmm. I would say that if you're not doing a point-by-point commentary on
the original message (as I'm doing here), you shouldn't include the original
at all unless your own message would be otherwise inexplicable.
Man, I hate it when I get messages with 5 or 6 levels of quoted text,
all basically uneditted and long-irrelevant to the current new content.
Unfortunately, the worst offenders are work-related (ie *NOT PICLIST*,
in my case.) :-( It's especially annoying when the initial message is
20k+ of customer error log or code to be reviewed.
When you do it this way, it works QUITE well, I am told. When the
screen reader hits the "Original Message follows" line, it's clear your
response message is over & done with <G> (I omitted that earlier, which
could add to confusion here. Oops.)
Imagine having to go through a 1200 line post, listening to "greater
than" pronounced in a monotone, over & over again, to determine where to
start reading. It's not MY idea of fun.
Have we all had enough of the topic, and said what we had to say, I
think?
>
> > One informative note: For blind and other disabled users, it's by far
> > easiest to put your response at the top.
>
> Hmm. I would say that if you're not doing a point-by-point commentary on
> the original message (as I'm doing here), you shouldn't include the original
> at all unless your own message would be otherwise inexplicable.
>
> Man, I hate it when I get messages with 5 or 6 levels of quoted text,
> all basically uneditted and long-irrelevant to the current new content.
> Unfortunately, the worst offenders are work-related (ie *NOT PICLIST*,
> in my case.) :-( It's especially annoying when the initial message is
> 20k+ of customer error log or code to be reviewed.
>
> BillW
SIGMAIS.COM> posted a relatively long message under the 
