RE: [ga] ICANN | Advisory | 23 August 2001

["Cade,Marilyn S - LGA" <mcade@att.com>]

I fear that I am part of the folks who don't trim away enough.  :-) 

But that doesn't mean that I can't benefit from the experience of others to
improve my own behavior.

I had a conversation recently with an industry colleague in a developing
country where he/she responded to my simple forward with a lot of
unnecessary attachments [from their point of view] with a request: Please
cut off any unnecessary text in your communications.  Online communications
costs are much greater in [my] country than in yours. 

So, I found this exchange in the GA both enlightening and interesting.  I
think Kent is right about the  "online etiquette" issue, but some of us may
still be thinking that context requires forwarding of the full string. And,
since perhaps there are new folks on any communications, it might appear to
be so. 

But, since many will find the transmittal of the full string burdensome, I
suspect we have a compromise somewhere in the middle on this issue.

I am part of, as are most of my fellow GA subscribers, other groups.  I note
that some other groups I am a subscriber to, in other countries, also make
the request of "cutting off the string".

So, while not endorsing either view, NOR SEEKING TO CREATE A NEW WORKING
GROUP ON COMMUNICATIONS PROTOCOLS, I wonder if we could benefit from just
individually thinking of how we like to be communicated with, and try to
achieve a process which doesn't burden others, but gets the points across
which the "speaker"  wants to make.

MC

-----Original Message-----
From: Kent Crispin [mailto:kent@songbird.com]
Sent: Saturday, August 25, 2001 12:47 PM
To: ga@dnso.org; ga@dnsga.org
Subject: Re: [ga] ICANN | Advisory | 23 August 2001


On Sat, Aug 25, 2001 at 12:15:24PM -0400, Derek Conant wrote:
> They may be "> > worthless quotes" to you, however, I believe that it is
> good practice to have an accurate record regarding the text one is
> responding to.

If we all followed your prescription, then each email message would
repeat the entire thread it was part of.  That is a singularly silly
result, not worthy of a man of your intellect.  In practice, it is
absolutely necessary to edit away repetitive material.  Bear in mind 
that everyone on the list has seen the material before, and moreover, 
the list is archived, and anyone who is confused can refer to the 
archive. 

Years of experience have lead to a few simple rules of email ettiquette,
and one of the most important is to trim away unnecessary repetitive
text, leaving only the amount necessary to identify the context, as I 
have done here.

[...]

> Give us a break.

*You* give us a break.  You may think you are doing us a favor by
quoting 12 layers deep, but it is the same kind of favor that a
flatulent person bestows on a crowded room.

> Are you trying to confuse people here, or what?  If
> you don't like quoted text, then simply ignore the quoted text.  

Actually, Derek, if you can't abide by simple rules of ettiquette you
will find that your messages will be ignored in total.  Experience shows
that short meaningful comments are far more effective.  People tend to
resent having their time and bandwidth wasted with unnecessarily
redundant text. 


-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Be good, and you will be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain
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