----- Original Message ---- > From: Sim IJskes - QCG <s...@qcg.nl> > To: river-dev@incubator.apache.org > Sent: Thu, January 6, 2011 3:44:12 AM > Subject: quoting > > People, > > Shall we reduce the amount of quoting please?! > > And as a rule, declare that a quote may not be any longer than the actual >reply. >
I depends really. It is all contextual. Too, is one using a forum or just the list? If a forum, reducing quoting works out better, but still can be hard to weed through depending on the complexity of the context, but if just using the list, and there is no good context it is hard to find the specific message being replied to, one can't read all the messages necessarily, so just to get the content from a single one, it needs to have enough information for the thread. Thus a problem in itself which is hard to resolve. I think too many rules of that nature tend to get in the way (or at least can) of contributions to discussions and design; how much time does one spend thinking amount the amount of information in the overall email versus being concise...sometimes the two are not the same as it depends of the scope of the conversation and how concise one can actually be. Is it more concise to use multiple emails for what can be accomplished in one? Which is more confusing? I think it all depends on how many points are there really. If say 1-4, perhaps a single email is better...more conversational. If it gets much bigger, breaking those down into grockable chunks seems to work best, but too we have to think about time people spend etc on their contributions versus their day job. Every little thing taking up mental cycles is still taking up mental cycles; thus death by needles. Either way, those things need to have enough context to understand what is being answered or replied to and who said what as to not wind up later with someone thinking X said A when Y said A...people are funny creatures about that sometimes. If using mobiles for the list, perhaps one could do that in a limited or strategic capacity, as to not waste their money, and perhaps use a digest or a forum versus all messages for such an account, and use another on your computer for the full context. On mine, I use Yahoo, the mobile web site, versus hooking it up to my contribution related accounts to be download all the individual messages, because I can read just those headers, and nothing is downloaded, not even the headers, until I page to it. I have an unlimited data plan, but that still is easier to manage because that many messages on my mobile just seems hard to manage. On mobiles I'm not 100% sure the answer. In my own experiences it seems I'm actually able to do more typing on the computer and is so much faster plus I'm actually able to work on code. Not second guessing anyone's use cases though; just saying it is a tough one to solve considering all the little things involved overall. On the overall point, I'm not really all that picky, as long as that doesn't take precedence over the content of the messages themselves as that seems more of a negative than a positive to me if that becomes the case. I just wanted to be sure and stress that point as a consideration. Thanks, Wade
