[pct-l] Bad List Manners

[dude at fastmail.ca (dude)]

I would agree that replying with an enormous trail of emails dragging 
at the end of your reply is not very useful.  

However, I disagree that one should always remove the previous 
message when replying because it helps put the comments in 
perspective.  For instance, if someone just replies and says "Oh 
yeah... I find that very useful.  I would recommend that to anyone.", 
I would want to know what the heck that reply is talking about, so 
including either a snippet of the email with the reply that explains 
what the reply is referring to, or including the whole email in the 
reply (if its too complex to slice up) is not only ok, but 
preferred.  many times, I delete the original message and it is 
inconvenient or impossible to go back and locate the original message 
to which the response refers.

Honestly, I am not a digest member, so perhaps I do not understand 
the problem, but even the longest of longest posts that have this 
porblem are still far under 100k.  By contrast, a very usable web 
page such as The Google News page weighs in at over 200k, so these 
emails are still not very large.

If you are reading these emails on a PDA, Blackberry, or cellphone, 
and that is the reason that the long emails are an issue, consider 
not doing so because a discussion list (any list, not just this one)
is not really designed for such mediums.

peace,
dude

ps: I am leaving the original email below because I think that it 
would be helpful if people wanted to see what i was responding to.



> Please, please don't copy the entire message when you "reply" to
> any Internet message list including this one.  Particularly if you
> receive the messages in digest form.
> 
> 
> 
> I don't mean to flame, but Scottie W. just sent a reply message
> that included two full digests of messages (33 messages each) for
> a total of 66 messages at the bottom of his otherwise short reply.
>  That volume of pure junk makes all other digest users gag. 
> Please think before hitting buttons on your computer.
> 
> 
> 
> Bill
> 
> 
> 
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