This is a modification of a posting I last made in Jan 2007, which itself was a modification of one made in Feb 2005, and so on.
My SUGGESTION is below. However this is only a SUGGESTION, as it must play second fiddle to the ready flow of information, and so there will be no actual enforcement from me (though I will wade in from time to time to rap knuckles for excessive quoting). As has been the case since this list began in 1995, people can post as they wish. Of course, the more readable posts will get the most attention from readers. That said, here is my SUGGESTION: As canals-list manager, I ENCOURAGE posting of new material below the RELEVANT parts of the original messages, like this: So-and-so wrote: > Statement #1 Your reply to Statement #1 here. > Statement #2 Your reply to Statement #2 here. and so forth ... --- By relevant parts, I mean to say you only ought to quote from the original message those portions you are directly replying to, and omit the rest. This method seems to make the most sense to me, because: - people scan messages from top to bottom - thus they encounter a statement, and then immediately the poster's reply to the statement So it reads like a conversation. Of course, you may have a different opinion! This method can be called "bottom posting" but the better term for it is "inline replying" or "interleaved reply". (Pure "bottom posting" is replying below the whole of the original message. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_styles for a discussion, if you are interested.) Some argue that with this method one might need to scroll down "too far" to see a new contribution. However this is really only the case when a poster has quoted too much of the message being replied to. Ordinarily, just a few lines in each quoted portion will be sufficient to remind readers of the points under discussion. (Needing to scroll "too far" is really only a problem with pure bottom posting.) Finally, we all must be cognizant of people who receive the list in digest form. First, when they reply to a message, they have much more work to do than the rest of us, and yet they still do it well. So they deserve our thanks for their extra effort. Secondly, we are being considerate of them when we cut down excessive quoting in our replies. Some digests can look like endless requotes of the same message, with ocassional new material here and there - very difficult to read. So please do try to keep quoting to a reasonable amount. Cheers, - george [canals-list co-manager] www.canals.com
