Re: BIRD PHYLOGENY, DNA, MOL. CLOCKS *YAWWN*

[Kiran Wagle <entropy@io.com>]

On Wed, 10 Jan 1996, Bonnie Blackwell, x 3332 wrote:

> avoid including the message to which you are replying unless it is
> an old one.

On 01/10/96 pharrinj@PLU.edu wrote:

> our only option is to go through the message and manually delete
> most of it.  I will try to be more considerate in the future, though.

Then that's what ya gotta do, huh.

(That's what most people have to do.  You may be able to teach your mailer
to not include any text, but that's as bad as including too much.)

Included text is best limited to about four lines in one place.  If you
need to include more than that, summarize.  (There are style guides on
writing for the net that mention these things--writing for a screen is
quite different than writing for paper.)

Many people who've been on the net for a while adopt a policy of deleting
any posting that has no new text on the first screen (which is often 24
lines including headers.)  And some people will kill-file people who
include "too much" included text in a message, no matter where it is.

So if you want to be read, especially by people who get hundreds of
messages  a day, it's YOUR job to insure that your postings are not only
interesting, but easy to read as well.  It's easy to be lazy and figure it
doesn't matter, but that's not always the case.

~ Kiran <entropy@io.com>

"Our gods are dead.  Ancient Klingon warriors slew them a millenia ago.

"They were... more trouble than they were worth." --Worf, DS9, "Homefront."