Gerry said:
Daave
If the practice of including the content of previous messages in the
current message were abandoned would this issue arise? The
justification for inclusion of the content of previous messages
normally expressed by those complaining when it has been snipped is
that they cannot see what has gone before. The answer is that all
they need to do is to re-open the earlier messages. Of course if the
user has already removed the earlier messages then that option may
not be available.
When a number of users are contributing to a thread then normally not
all that has been said gets included in the message. This means that
those relying on the current content of the latest message get a
"blinkered" view of what has gone before. You frequently can see the
effects of this in the responses posted where one contributor
continues to pursue a point when, had they looked elsewhere in the
thread, they would know that the point has already been resolved.
The ability to see the structure of the thread and sub-threads that
Outlook Express facilitates is extremely useful. I would happily
remove the content of past messages from posts were it not for the
reaction I know it would provoke.
The right way to respond to a message is to snip away that content which
you are not responding to. Leave anything to do with what you are
responding to. If you have several comments about several points in a
post, then leave it in tact and intersperse your responses within the
quoted text, leaving a blank line before and after each of your
repsponses to make them easy to find/see. Or, if you'd rather put all
your comments together in one place, go to the bottom of the quote and
put them there. But be sure to refer back to parts of the quoted
material so it's clear what you're talking about. It isn't necessary to
leave the names of every poster to a thread in tact; only the person/s
you are responding to.
Never delete everything and simply offer your own text back. It
leaves your comments stranded, without any reference to what they are
about.
This is all part of the netiquette RFC if you care to look at it.
Some newsgroups insist on following it strictly, some don't particularly
care how you post but those often result in posts that require so much
study on the part of a reader that many will pass them by without
bothering to read them.
Although there is no way to enforce it, a group's culture is often
such that top posting, neglecting to snip, snipping too much, etc., will
draw criticism rather than useful answers, especially of the responses
are off topic and have nothing to do with the original poster's query.
Newsgroups' purposes are the dissemination of information. Some do a
great job of it, some do not.
The concensus of a newsgroup's participants normally dictate the
accepted norms; never a single person.
Personally, whatever methods a group seems to prefer is what I use. If
they top post, I'll top post. If they bottom post, I'll do that. If
they intersperse comments within the original post, I'll do that.
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1855.html part 3
http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/ie/community/columns/newsgroups101.mspx
and others.
HTH,
Twayne
Not very good defragger IMO