trim messages

[Guest guest]

Another site to which I belong issues this request every two weeks........

maybe of use???? just a thought

PLEASE TRIM YOUR MESSAGES

1. What does " trimming " mean?

First, it DOES NOT mean that you should make your messages shorter

than you would like to. Say what you have to say and use as many words

as is necessary.

All it means is that you shouldn't include in your message the whole

of the one that you are responding to (unless, perhaps, it is short).

Better just to include a little of it so that the person you are

responding to, and everyone else, is reminded what you are replying

to, but doesn't have to plough through it all again.

Sometimes, people get involved in an exchange of messages and just

keep hitting the " reply " button. Suppose I send you a message, A. Then

you add your response, B, and hit " reply " . Now A and B appear on the

list. If I add my further response, C, then A, B and C appear on the

list. This can in theory go on indefinitely and can end up with huge

messages appearing which are mostly composed of tons of responses that

everyone has already seen.

2. Why is this a bad thing?

a. It makes the list tedious to use, especially for people who choose

to use digests.

b. It clogs up the archives with duplicate information, which lessens

the effectiveness of searching.

c. Those who are brain fogged might be confused.

3. How do I trim messages?

DO NOT simply hit " reply " , add your response, and then send your

message. Before you send it, be sure to delete as much of the message

you are replying to as possible. You only need a little of the

preceding message as is necessary to contextualise your response.

4. Why don't moderators trim messages for us?

******** the original list owner, used to vet every message before

it got posted. He would trim them where necessary. This involved him

in an awful lot of work, and I've always thought this got too much for

him and contributed to the reasons why he eventually got fed up and

simply deleted the whole list, which we had to start up again from

scratch (although we managed to retrieve many messages which can now

be found in the files section). No offence meant to *****, he was a

dedicated owner, and in his shoes many of us might have done the same

thing.

When we re-created the list, we decided not to vet every posting, and

to keep moderation to a minimum. The idea was for everyone to take

part in the running of the list, really, with moderators only having

to intervene now and then. We could not manage a list which has grown

as large as this one has without relying on members to share in the

responsibility for keeping it tidy and on track.

5. Why this message?

I have found that no matter how often I remind people, periodically we

get spates of untrimmed message exchanges. Part of the reason is that

we get so many people joining, and the new ones haven't read the

preceding reminders.

For this reason, this message, like the FAQs, will now be posted every

two weeks so that there is an ongoing reminder to people to trim their

messages. I thank everyone in advance for their cooperation in this

matter and hope they understand why it is necessary to remind everyone

periodically.

If this advice is ignored, regrettably it may prove necessary to delete

excessively long, untrimmed messages.