Fwd: [MR] A humble request.... Please trim responses

[James Pryor]

In regards to email programs. Even when you filter your mail to different 
buckets, sometimes people will bury their replies with in the body of the 
previous email. That is not something that any sort of filtering will find. 

Whereas, if they clip the text of the previous email to the pertinent points 
they are replying to it makes for a clearer read and makes it easier to 
understand their point. 

In addition, even if you set up your email programs for filtering and threading 
it still does not solve the problem that you would have to wade through the 
whole body of the message to find pertinent comments. Unless you can color code 
the replies which most plain text email programs will not do. Before you 
comment on plain text email programs, they are perfectly valid when security 
and space is an issue. In fact I prefer to get my emails in plain text so that 
i do not have to look at a lot of garbage and so that i can read it from 
anywhere and am not dependent on a particular email program to view it. 

Also, there is the factor of space. Yes harddrives are getting bigger and yes 
ISP's are offering more storage space but each time you send a message and 
include all of the previous comments in it you take up space. The more that 
comment the more space it takes. Eventually you will run out of space. That is 
the crux of the issue. The courtesy, while it is nice for readability it is 
also important for those that have limited space or whose servers filter out 
emails that are too large. 

Anyway, that is my two sheckles worth. I personally agree with the person 
asking for the courtesy and will also point out that it is a long standing part 
of good netiquette. Besides, it is not that much more time to trim an email 
than the time to reply to an email with something worth saying.

Chimbai