A gentle reminder: Please Don't Quote Entire Postings

[Patrick O'Connell <titanide -at- MICRO -dot- ORG>]

I've said this before and have no doubt I'll have to say it again. There
has recently been a profusion of people quoting others' messages IN THEIR
ENTIRETY when they're referring only to a paragraph, or at least could do
so IMHO.

Why it's a good idea NOT to do this:

1. This practice swells techwr-l digests unnecessarily. It's extremely
labor-intensive to clip out the crud if you're trying to keep your
digests, as I am, and don't have infinite disk space. Who among us can
claim that last one?

2. It's a waste of bandwidth. If it weren't for the unbeLIEVable rise in
Net traffic in the last 1 1/2 to 2 years, I probably wouldn't be making
this argument. Remember that (1 x number of techwr-l members) mail
messages get sent out for EVERY SINGLE POST to this list. In terms of byte
volume that's a daily average of about (100K x number of...) if you're
receiving techwr-l in digest form. Bump that up slightly for individual
messages.

If a list has 700 members and postings total up to 100 kilobytes a day,
its listmembers are responsible for transmitting **70 MEGABYTES* across
the Net every day. What was the last membership total, again?

I'm certain I'll get flamed about off-topic posts for this -- MINE, in
particular. OK, sure, yes, and we ALL do it. It's easier to stop
breathing, I think, than not propagate a totally off-topic thread (is
there a 2-cents/chime-in gene in the human genetic makeup?  :-)

I say: admit we'll always do this, but try to quote minimally when
following up to someone else's magnum opus. I recognize that snipping
irrelevant material is not so easy for some people. For those for whom
it's a snap, myself included: we have no excuses.


Pat
titanide -at- micro -dot- org