Shoe pounding

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Thu May 13 13:53:15 UTC 2010


At 5/13/2010 03:01 AM, ronbutters at AOL.COM wrote:
>Those of us who frequently post from blackberries can easily delete
>original text before writing, though that is not the default
>category. Not so easy with many e-mail systems, however.

(1)  It should be easy with any e-mail system that allows one to edit
one's reply before sending -- which I suppose must be all e-mail
systems.  Just cut out the original text, as you would cut out an
offending word.

(2)  Sometimes bottom- or interspersed-posting makes more sense --
e.g., if one is directly replying to a specific statement in the
original post and the reply is noticeably easier to understand if it
follows the original.
      When I intersperse, I try to announce that at the top.
      It is always thoughtful and courteous to delete any portions of
the original that are not relevant to the reply.  But then, as
someone else has already said, we're not all thoughtful and courteous here.

(3)  One can appreciate the slogging an archive reader, or a
BlackBerry reader, has to do whenever someone reading the archive
replies without deleting the irrelevant from a full day's (or
week's?) messages.

(4)  I try to sign off after the last of my comments, even when I
leave some of the original message thereafter, as hereunder.

Joel


>Couldn't the list owner set ADS-L to cut off messages longer than,
>say, 100 lines? That would create a problem for bottom feeders, but
>they are declining in number because top+posting appears to be the
>default mechanism for most e-mail systems.
>
>For me, the biggest waste of time are the one-line zingers and
>simple-minded I-agree-Bruces that add nothing to the
>discussion--especially when they come at the BOTTOM of 200 lines of
>text. It takes a lot of time and effort with a blackberry to get to
>the bottom of those long passages, and when I am travelling (I am on
>Barcelona right now) BlackBerry is my only option.
>Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

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