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Sara Moffat Lorimer    672134 Sun, 28 Sep 03 02:14 PM

"SML:"

"A post is too long if I have to scroll through it."

"But that's ridiculous. What if someone just so happens to type a novel? I mean, there are going to be ... it is. I was under the impression that you were saying my posts were too long because of QUOTES, though."

Yup you had left in a lot of unnecessary material. Again, I hope you don't think I'm picking on you it happens a lot on AUE.

SML
please remove your hat when sending me e-mail
http://pirate-women.com
Sara Moffat Lorimer
R F    672168 Sun, 28 Sep 03 04:24 PM

"SML: But that's ridiculous. What if someone just so happens ... saying my posts were too long because of QUOTES, though."

"Yup you had left in a lot of unnecessary material. Again, I hope you don't think I'm picking on you it happens a lot on AUE."

I've noticed recently that many of us, me included, are doing a poor job at snipping quoted material; I'd meant to post something about this, and am using this opportunity to do so now. We should only include that portion of the posting being replied to that is directly relevant to the posting being written. Care should be taken to delete any quoted material following the newly-posted remarks, unless there is strong justification for including it (for example, R.J. Valentine sometimes closes with a quotation from a previous poster's "sig", and I believe that he does so not due to carelessness but as a way of expressing commentary on some aspect of the previous poster's inclusion of that "sig" material).

I've noticed that many AUE posters will do the following:

(body of posting, including quoted material and immediate responses to such material)
followed by
(instant poster's signature)
and *then* followed by a quotation of the previous poster's signature. For example:

cldst rgds
Rev. Thrush Smallrnone
Proximate part of Hertfordshire, Eng.
"Cony Tooper Provider of tots, jittles, and Oy!s http://www.conytooper.com"

Does anyone do this *intentionally*, and if so, what is the justification for it? The only possible justification I can see is that the instant poster thinks that including the previous poster's signature makes clear to the reader who was being replied to. But, if so, it seems like an awfully silly way to remind the reader of that fact, especially since the reader should, ideally, be able to go the *beginning* of the posting to see who the instant poster was responding to.
Surely there's nothing in the canons of netiquette that calls for preserving a previous poster's signature.
At least one AUE poster has taken me to task for not having a "sig" of any sort, but I see no reason to have a "sig" when people are engaging in this sort of questionable posting style. JMTCONTM.
R F
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Related discussions
Reinhold Rey Aman    672276 Sun, 28 Sep 03 08:17 PM

"SML please remove your hat when sending me e-mail http://pirate-women.com"

Even though you've been spared the wrath of the obnoxious busybody quoted below, please be aware that the lonesome pain-in-the-ass St. Padraig Breathnach (a.k.a. "Some") might consider your posting of your "commercial" Web site link to be "out of order."

"Some might also think that posting the website
link in a non-commercial group was out of order."
+ Padraig Breathnach, 26 Sept 2003

Reinhold (Rey) Aman, Publisher
MALEDICTA PRESS
P.O. Box 14123
Santa Rosa, CA 95402, USA
http://www.maledicta.ORG/
Reinhold Rey Aman
Dena Jo     672381 Sun, 28 Sep 03 10:14 PM

"(instant poster's signature)"

One so seldom sees "instant" used this way outside of legal documents. Good man.
(P.S. Check your email, please.)

Dena Jo
(Email: Replace TPUBGTH with denajo2)
Dena Jo
DE781    674475 Wed, 01 Oct 03 09:45 PM

(SML wrote something about quotes:)
No, I don't think you're picking on me. I understand your point about not getting lost in quotes. But I'm still confused.
Here's my problem. I used to access this group through AOL, which is what I'm doing now. AOL usually lets me insert a quote (from the previous post only) as I am typing, but without any context or attribution. I used to get yelled at for not attributing or quoting properly. Again, it was AOL's fault, not mine.

Ironically, today there seems to be more problems with AOL's newsgroup area than usual. I'm not able to quote AT ALL!
More recently, I started to use Google to access the AUE, and this is what I usually do. But Google just keeps ALL previous text (from all previous posts) when you respond to something. Is it acceptable to cut all quotes but the stuff by the person who you're replying directly to? This seems reasonable to me. But, I don't know what the general standard is.

Also, if this is acceptable, why were people annoyed when I used to only use AOL, and was not able to quote beyond one post?
DE781
,
Sara Moffat Lorimer    674494 Wed, 01 Oct 03 09:53 PM

DE781 wrote, in part:
"Is it acceptable to cut all quotes but the stuff by the person who you're replying directly to?"

Acceptable, and encouraged!

SML
please remove your hat when sending me e-mail
http://pirate-women.com
Sara Moffat Lorimer
Skitt    674510 Wed, 01 Oct 03 10:00 PM

"(SML wrote something about quotes:) Here's my problem. I used to access this group through AOL, which is what I'm ... attribution. I used to get yelled at for not attributing or quoting properly. Again, it was AOL's fault, not mine."

Now you should understand why Time Warner is dropping any references to AOL in their name.
"Ironically, today there seems to be more problems with AOL's newsgroup area than usual. I'm not able to quote AT ALL!"

That's AOL for you.
"More recently, I started to use Google to access the AUE, and this is what I usually do. But Google ... person who you're replying directly to? This seems reasonable to me. But, I don't know what the general standard is."

Yes, leave the attribution and that part of the attributed person's post that is necessary to understand what you are responding to. The rest can be snipped.
"Also, if this is acceptable, why were people annoyed when I used to only use AOL, and was not able to quote beyond one post?"

As I recall, you were not able to show whom you were answering. Also, sometimes a couple of previous contributions are necessary to show what is really going on.
In other words, what you write should not force the reader to go back through the thread to make sense of your contribution.
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/
Skitt
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Dena Jo     674558 Wed, 01 Oct 03 10:40 PM

"Is it acceptable to cut all quotes but the stuff by the person who you're replying directly to?"

That's what I do. I keep only what's necessary for context. Sometimes that's more than one person's post; sometimes it's just a sentence.

Dena Jo
(Email: Replace TPUBGTH with denajo2)
Dena Jo
,
J. W. Love  , 6 yr 39 days ago

It is? Is it for me too?! (See above.)
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