Re: Re: Low-content posts - some ideas on posting

[Guest guest]

see comments below

On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 22:56:36 -0800

" Kathy " <kacheson@...> wrote:

><< Someone wrote: [Nothing, but (s)he quoted a several-hundred-line post to

>> make up for it]

>>

>> I'm not picking on anyone in particular (hence the name-dropping and/or

>> lack thereof), but could I ask that people restrict the back-patting,

>> thank-yous, and me-toos to private, off-list e-mail? There are hundreds of

>>>

>

>I know that i have asked, pleaded more than once for some basic editing to

>no avail. Most lists ask for a basic quoiting of a couple of lines. Those

>of us on digest really get drowned in junk. I know that i dump most

>digests due to unreadabilty. Trying to decipher all the stuff doesn't work

>and so those of us on digest just don't read most of the posts. We just

>delete it unread. Anyone that has not been on digest needs to spend a couple

>of weeks there!!

>

>

>Kathy A.

Since this has come up again I thought I would repost my message on

posting etiquette. Again feel free to ignore it if you think it is out

of line. I would only add one thing to that list and that is anyone who

is in digest mode please make sure you change the subject line to

reflect the post you are responding too. Otherwise the digest number

just shows up in the subject line.

Thanks,

#############################################

Hi folks,

I have a ton of posts from this list that I have yet to read, but as I

am perusing them I have noticed a few things that makes reading them

much more difficult. So below I have listed some suggestions that might

make handling the volume on this list much easier.

Note: these are *suggestions* not orations from Mt. Sinai, so please do

not take personal offense. I'm only trying to help make the experience on

this list as painless as possible. And as always, with everything that

is mentioned on this list, you are free to ignore any and everything I

say.

1. Top posting makes it difficult to read and follow the logic of a

response to a post. It also makes it difficult to keep a logical flow

when responding to a top poster who is responding to someone else.

What is top posting? It is when you respond to a post by putting your

reply at the top of the previous message rather than right after the

part of the message you are responding too.

There seems to be an awful lot of that as of late.

This is particularly annoying when you have a long response and it is

not immediately apparent what you are responding too. Then one has to

read your long post and often an equally long previous message only to

find that the portion you were responding too is buried toward the very

bottom of the previous post.

Unless you are extremely judicious like Idol in your top posting

(and he is the only top poster I have ever come across that I can read

without difficulty) I would suggest you avoid it.

Better for most of us to answer below the section we are responding too.

2. Related to the above is dead posts. Please please please remove all

aspects of the previous post that is not germane to your response. Some

top posters will answer with one line and then leave all the rest of the

previous post intact. Or some folks will answer after the whole body of

a previous message with just a couple of lines that only pertain to a

portion of the message.

Some will answer within the body of the message while still leaving

intact large portions of the message which have nothing to do with their

response. And others have 4 or 5 previous messages following their

response.

To make it easier on all of us, delete the dead portion of the posts.

3. As we learned in the off topic libertarian posts, it is very helpful

when one either changes the subject line to match such a change in the

reply or adds a tag to the current subject line to indicate its emphasis.

And while it is obvious on off topic posts, it is just as helpful for *on

topic* messages.

4. Please make sure you wrap your text when responding. If you don't and

someone is reading your post at the website, then it blows out the

formatting as one cannot see your message in the current window, but has

to scroll across the entire page to read it.

4. And last but not least, if you are replying in the body of a message,

please find a way to clearly set off your current remarks against any

previous remarks by you or someone else. There are many ways to do this

so I'm not going to insult anyone's intelligence by making suggestions.

But I just read two posts where I couldn't tell what was new, what was

old, and who was saying what.

Thanks for listening to my rant,

Stupid Vogue

http://tinyurl.com/39juj