I've noticed for some while an increasing tendency tendency for people to
not trim old material from replies.
In some cases this can be due to a poorly designed email client and user
interface making it hard for users to do other than send all or none of the
prior material, but in most cases this is easily user controllable.

It would be appreciated if people did not repeat large amounts of prior
posts in their messages.
The normal rule is to include enough of the prior post to allow the context
to be established.

As a very rough rule of thumb, if there is more prior material than new
material it probably needs trimming. In many cases, much less than 50:50
old:new would be appropriate. As with all 'rules' there can be any number
of exceptions - if you post what you do because it's useful and you know
why you do it and do it for a purpose then there should be no problem.

Equally - having at least SOME prior context is often helpful - some posts
are completely unable to be understood or are highly ambiguous because they
contain a short comment with no prior material at all for context. If the
thread is on a clearly understood topic it may be reasonable to repost none
of the prior material, but often at least a 'prior snippet' is helpful.




         Russell McMahon
--=20
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