**PLEASE** don't copy email messages without quoting

Jonathan Robie (jwrobie@mindspring.com)
Thu, 10 Jul 1997 14:43:07 -0400

The email messages here on b-greek are placed in digests, where one message
follows another, and are archived by programs which automatically parse the
messages. Several people have started including entire email messages at the
bottom of their own messages, including all the headers, without using any
form of quoting. This causes several problems:

1. No matter how you read it, you have to wade through a lot of stuff that
isn't relevant. Most guides to Netiquette suggest that you trim down quoted
messages as much as possible.

2. In the digests, it is hard to see where one message ends and the next one
begins, since you usually look for the headers to find the next message. If
your messages include all the headers from other messages, it can be confusing.

3. These headers can also confuse some of the programs we use to process
messages for the web site. I'm working on more robust ways of handling
things, but my job would be much simpler if people wouldn't do that!

Sorry to clutter the list with Yet Another Administrative Message...

Jonathan

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Jonathan Robie jwrobie@mindspring.com http://www.mindspring.com/~jwrobie
POET Software, 3207 Gibson Road, Durham, N.C., 27703 http://www.poet.com
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