Don't Subquote, Dammit

[Fiona_McQuarrie@sfu.ca]

This request was made a few weeks ago and I have made it in the past, and I
am going to make it once again....

WHEN YOU ARE RESPONDING TO PREVIOUS MESSAGES, PLEASE BE BRIEF IF YOU ARE
QUOTING FROM THEM!!!!

Not all of us are working with high-speed, high-memory computers, and it is
annoying beyond belief to have your messages load slowly and/or your e-mail
disk fill up and crash (thereby killing OTHER messages), because of ad
nauseum quotes from previous postings.

Prime example: the recent thread on which 10,000 Maniacs record to buy. (My
personal suggestion would be a short and sweet "none of them"), but, hey,
that's just me.) We were treated to the spectacle of messages which
sub-sub-sub-quoted other messages, which has the effect of someone coming
up to you and saying, "Joan said this about what Bill said to Wendy about
this and here's what I think". A simple line at the beginning of the new
posting along the lines of "Re: 10,000 Maniacs records" would be quite
sufficient. 

What's even more annoying is when three or four messages sub-sub-sub-quote
the same material so not only do you have to try to figure it out, you have
to read it over three or four times!

So get with it, people. Don't be jerks. Be considerate of other readers
(especially those using 1200-baud modems or limited memory capacity) and
keep the repeating to a minimum.

Thank you.
Fiona McQuarrie
fmcquarr@sfu.ca