Replies, quoting, and context (was: Good initiative mechanics?)

gleichman <fox1_217@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> writes:

> On Mar 17, 5:11 pm, Simon Smith <simon_smith_n...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> > Please take more care with attributions in future. If you snip
> > everything else I say, snip my name too.
> 
> That could make it difficult to know who the response was to (and it
> was directly to you, not to the others in the thread), but as you
> wish.

That's exactly right. So, rather than snipping *all* the quoted
material, you should retain just enough (with correct attribution) to
give context to your reply.

Sometimes there's no single part of the message that you're replying
to; in those cases, just providing a one-sentence summary of what the
message said is better than nothing at all.

In those cases (and this doesn't seem to be one) where your reply
truly needs *none* of the original material to have context, then it
probably isn't a reply to that message at all. In which case, starting
a new thread is better than replying.

-- 
 \          “That's all very good in practice, but how does it work in |
  `\                                             *theory*?” —anonymous
|
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney