SNIP!
> I hope that I have succeeded. BTW, one unrelated request: your posts--the
> ones that I have seen--tend to be exceedingly long. If I'm not mistaken, the
> policy of the list is to avoid writing long posts; and even if it is not
> policy, I would much appreciate shorter posts. Reading is not a chore per
> se, but it is tedious to respond to long posts.
The list does not have a policy on length of posts. We once encouraged
Jeffrey Gibson to post some long and useful studies when he was concerned
that they might be too long to post here. IMHO, good posts are long enough
to cover the subject, but short enough to be interesting. Ward's posts
contain an awful lot of content, but are interesting. As you say, reading
his posts is not a chore.
The secret to responding to long posts is to keep your response short and
simple - use <SNIP> liberally, and talk about the things you find
interesting to talk about.
Jonathan
Jonathan Robie
jwrobie@mindspring.com
http://www.mindspring.com/~jwrobie