Subject line intentionally not changed at this stage. > I find it extremely lazy and selfish to do a drive-by of a bare link to > the Piclist. > > It makes me think the poster didn't even take the time to read to > article and wants the members of the Piclist to do the reading for him. > > Using the Piclist in this way is inappropriate and does a disservice to > all the other members. > (1) Let me agree with Bob :-). While I would have put it substantially more politely [tm],I think his point is often valid. In this particular case the subject line and link address happens to summarise the subject well enough that I think Gus arguably gets off Bob's charge viz [OT] Amazon gets patent for amazing photographic technique + ... /picture-this-us- patent-office-grants-amazon-photography-against-a-white-background-patent /... There is (arguably) enough there for those who care to look and those who don't to leave, but this is often enough not the case. Quite often URL-only bodies with low content subject lines are posted such that to find out what it's about you need to click the link. As Bob adumbrates - a little more effort by the poster would be much more useful to the large body of PICList members. (2) While I'm here I dislike / frown on / would like to discourage (choose any 3) the practice of starting a message in the subject line and continuing the sentence in the body so that the body makes little or no sense by itself. Deep-ending on the email client used the subject line may not be easily visible once reading the message. Subsequent inclusion of prior text in a response will often make still purer garbage of such truicated material. While those with eidetic recall and a threaded mond may be able to handle this, many can't, and it's possible than increasing years is decreasing my ability to do so personally. (Unknown TBD). SO - hatless request: Please ensure that "body" material stands alone without the necessity of referring to the subject line. (3) "And another thing ..." When replying in a manner which tends to be ambiguous or delphic without reference to prior material PLEASE include some clue or better as to what prior material is being referred to. Sometimes messages that say things like "I agree", "swap the X & Y registers", "Must be greater than 5.5mm to avoid fatalities", "Only for currents over 150A" are unable to be understood without crawling back along a thread, or not even then. Sometimes the likely effort is too great and the wit or knowledge is foregone. On some occasions this is a shame as the wit or information may be well worth having. So - "PLEASE include (at least) enough prior or explanatory material in a response to allow them to make sense in most cases without prior referencing or much work or at all. This needs not be overdone - if people are interested in a thread they do not need much in the way od cues. If a newcomer picks it up then reading back a few posts is an acceptable load. (4) AND (The 'PLEASE' got lost off this one) TRIM OFF unneeded old material. If you decide that old material, even substantial amounts, helps enough to warrant its inclusion, then by all means include it. BUT very often posts include all of an old message including system added footers etc and add maybe one line of comment that in no way needs the vast amount of prior material. The object is to make responses meaningful interesting and useful. Some people have email clients or devices whose systems hide old material or make it hard or even ~=3D impossible to edit or delete it. There is a simple work around to this 0- bin your client O/S or device and get a decent one. If that's too painful, consider using a "better" one fopr list emails and only send excess untrunmcated verbiage to friends, colleagues and important business contacts. Am I sounding enough like Bob yet ? :-). Russell (Where's my ADMIN hat) --=20 http://www.piclist.com/techref/piclist PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .