[filmscanners] RE: was: RE: SS4000 & ...now: mean people suck

["Laurie@advancenet.net" <laurie@advancenet.net>]

Without wanting to start a new controversy, I agree that email can be
clearer if it emulates a conversation; but the suggested practice is only
one way of attempting to do this.   It is neither the only way nor the
preferred way; it is merely another way.   And in point of fact, I typically
do pull out the parts of the message that I am responding to and respond
below that part before taking up the next part if it is a several point
message as the linked article suggests.

What I typically do not do, in part because I forget and in part for reasons
of context, is delete the original message in its entirety from the bottom
of my response.  I do try to delete any historic listing of messages that
came before the one I am replying to out of consideration for the things
that Tony brought up about digest subscribers; but I have to admit that I
often do forget to trim in this fashion during the heat of responding to a
number of waiting posts just as I often forget to spell and grammar check
before sending the post off.

Now, as we all know or should know, emails lack a lot of the communicative
context that face-to-face communications or audio communications have which
furnish context and background for the quoted expressions and materials as
well as the responses.  Thus, even brief excerpts from the text for purposes
of identifying what one is responding to can be misleading in terms of their
meanings - especially given any intervening traffic of assorted messages or
delays in receiving or responding to previous messages.  It is for that
reason that I prefer to leave the full message that I am replying to at the
bottom of the page while also extracting the portions being directly
responded to for purposes of the reply.

What is a sufficient and meaningful quote is a matter of personal judgment
and will vary from one person to another; there are no hard and fast rules
on what is or is not appropriate when it comes down to it.  Obviously, my
practice may be a thorn in the side of those on digests; but then again, the
demands of those on digest may be a thorn in my side and in the sides of
those who have selected to get individual emails.  I think that it would be
unfair for anyone to demand that either the digest users or the individual
email subscribers totally capitulate to the other.  Trimming of excess
historic posts beyond the original post that one is responding to is a good
compromise in most cases, I would think. Insisting on anything more in my
opinion would border on self-interest and not the common good.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: filmscanners_owner@halftone.co.uk
> [mailto:filmscanners_owner@halftone.co.uk] On Behalf Of
> caryenochr@enochsvision.com
> Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2008 7:26 AM
> To: laurie@advancenet.net
> Subject: [filmscanners] Re: was: RE: SS4000 & ...now: mean people suck
>
>
> Email is clearer when it emulates a conversation. A helpful article:
> http://email.about.com/cs/netiquettetips/qt/et090402.htm
>
> How Much to Quote and Where to Reply
>
> "When you reply to an email message, you should include that message,
> but only as much
> as is necessary to establish the context. Your reply should be below
> the quoted text,
> not above it. If there is more than one point you reply to, your
> repartees should follow
> the original text you refer to directly. Don't be shy to cut and
> reformat the quoted
> text (except where the original formatting is essential, of course)."
>

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe by mail to listserver@halftone.co.uk, with 'unsubscribe 
filmscanners'
or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or 
body