[va-bird] Re: Posting etiquette
- From: Katrina Knight <kknight@xxxxxxxx>
- To: va-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2005 12:55:00 -0400
At 12:24 PM 4/18/2005 Birdconsv@xxxxxxx wrote:
Could I ask my birding colleagues who post on VA-BIRD to please
post directly to the main address rather than replying to
specific messages. When you do the latter, the entire previous
post is incorporated into your reply and then reappears in
multiple form when I receive my daily report in "digest" form.
That's generally not true. Whether or not the previous post is
quoted when someone replies to it is a matter that is normally
under the control of the person doing the replying. (Very old
versions of AOL are one exception to this. I can't think of any
others. Newer versions of AOL allow the user to either turn off
quoting text or edit it, depending on how new they are.)
Not only that, this request is contrary to what is normally
desirable for a mailing list. Starting a new message instead of
replying breaks the threading of messages, and is thus very
undesirable to some people. (Threading involves headers that
tell the e-mail client which messages are replies to which other
messages. It allows for sorting messages by discussion and
having them shown in an order that makes sense.) Starting new
messages instead of replying may even break simple attempts to
sort by subject, unless the person doing it is very careful to
get the subject line exactly the same apart from the Re:
indicating that it is a reply.
I think that what Dave really should be asking is that people
carefully edit the quoted text in their replies, trimming out
what is not important to allowing the reader to understand what
is being replied to. That's what experienced internet users
consider to be good netiquette. Quoting the whole original
message is almost never important or desirable on a discussion
list. (There are circumstances where it is appropriate, so don't
argue with me over some other situation where it is desirable.)
Living with some degree of repetition is just something you have
to learn with though since it is important for people to know
what is being responded to. The obviousness of that repetition
is one of the disadvantages of digest mode.
Today I got at least 3, and probably more, full sets of the
"Where are the
Yellow-rumps" posting. That adds a lot of unnecessary and
sometimes confusing
scrolling when trying to find the new information. Thank you.
If this type of thing bothers you, you might also want to
consider using an e-mail client that allows you to hide properly
quoted text. Using AOL as your ISP does not confine you to only
using AOL's e-mail client, and many other clients allow you more
flexibility in what you do or don't do and how messages are
displayed.
--
Katrina Knight
kknight@xxxxxxxx
Reading, PA
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