Trim your posts, please [Archive] - Divine Cosmos Discussions

Tarzan

09-24-2001, 12:31 PM

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>group,
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>i am reposting some guidelines in writing and posting in this list. as of late, there have been far too many short replies, followed by huge chunks of dead data that should have been deleted. please do trim your posts when you reply to this list.
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>quoting myself:
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>group,
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>amongstthe many things that i do, one is which i am a writer/editor. i'd like to offer some suggestions to the group, so that there can be greater clarity and cleaner communications between the members of this group. this offer is done with love/light, not to be taken as criticisms. in anything that i like to do, i like to imitate nature, for she wastes not; her communications amongst her natural beings are effective and to the point, so it is my hope that my suggestions can be helpful in this regard.
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>i have noted a number of things while reading nearly the entire list of archived e-mails generated by the members of this group. the errors are mirrored in every single group of which i have been a member. so i'll point out the errors--distortions--and suggest the solutions thereof, to wit:
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>1) replies to posts:
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>i am sure you have seen posts which have single-sentence or single-paragraph replies, followed by one to five pages of dead text. i must admit that the one-sentence replies, followed by pages of dead text drove me nuts. when one replies to a posted e-mail, it is best to[b]delete the entire old message. when you do not delete pages of text, followed by a mere single-sentence reply, this waste of byte space is duplicated some 180+ times in the sending of your post to the members of this list; furthermore, such wasted byte space takes up space in the archives. the wasted space just sits there--it cannot be composed, like natural food-trimming wastes. the dead data just sits there. imagine how many trillions of wasted bytes of data happens on all the list groups web-wide. this habit is widespread and surely burdens the byte-transmission networks uneccessarily.
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>solution:
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>get rid of the "--original message--" gibberish; delete the entire message, except any part(s) to which you may be responding--if you are responding to specific part(s), then save those part(s) under the "from", if possible, i.e. "from: david wilcock [mailto:djw333@exis.net]", followed by the quoted text in this kind of format:
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>from: david wilcock [mailto:djw333@exis.net]

>btw: convergence iii fans will be delighted to know that the time-eating schedule problems...
>[end quote]
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>using the ">" marks to differentiate your new text from the previous text is fine, but many times the ">" marks do not appear, so it is useful to use the bracketed "beginquote...end quote" quote form. if a quoted text has been written by a poster several e-mails back, please try to get the original "[b]from" messenger name/e-mail address and put it on top of the quoted text. doing this can eliminate confusion of who authored what.
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>2)subject field:

>most folks who post replies all too often do not change the subject field, especially when their replies have nothing whatsoever to do with what is in the subject field. 
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>case in point:when i sent in my first post with the subject field of "greetings", there were several posts that had that specific "greetings" in the subject field--i thought that people were responding to my original post, but they were discussing the perils of channeling, which, in itself, is a good topic of discussion, but, for clarity's sakes, match the subject heading with the main point of the text in the text field. the topic of the perils of channeling then continued on for several posts, most of which had my original "greetings" subject heading. hey, nobody welcomed me :-( ...but that's ok, of course. imagine if you were totry to find a worhwhile comment made in this channeling topic in the messages section of the yahoo group section, you would not find this at all, unless you remembered that they were under my "greetings" post. the mis-match of subject headings with texts makes it very difficult to do any good research of posted material in this group.
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>it is natural for posts and replies to run off on tangents, for that is inherent in any conversation, however, it is best to as closely as possible to match the subject heading with the primary point(s) in the text field. it is fine to keep an original subject field--if you are sticking to the main point as indicated by the subject field, otherwise, i suggest that you add something to an original subject field, i.e., "[asc2k] just introducing myself." (mawk's first introductory post) and "[asc2k] just introducing myself; suggestions for mawk"(my response to mawk's post, with my added suggestions).
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>so this subject field alignment with text fields is important. take a look at the messages and click on them to see if they match the substance of the subject fields:
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>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/asc2k/messages
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>far too many times, they don't at all. worse of all is that there are some worthwhile comments made in posts that are buried in totally irrelevant subject headings and you will have to had know which one was in which in order to be able to find the worthwhile text.
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>solution:
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>so i suggest to use this format in subject headings, i.e.:
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>[asc2k]original post
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>then when replying, then, if you are focusing on the main point of the subject field:
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>[asc2k]original post
>[asc2k]original post; further comments
>[asc2k]orignial post; also
>[asc2k]original post; oh not so!
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>...or whatever you wish to add to the "original post" post.
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>if you run off on a tangent stemming from the "original post", then put in a new subject heading that matches your main point made in your new post.
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>i am sure that most of you post your own original posts by simply replying to a recently-arrived post--it is convenient, for sure--so be sure to write in a new subject heading and delete the entire old message in the old post.
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>i hope that these suggestions help. i won't be a nag and bother those of you who continue thesedistortional habits that i mentioned, for such a nagging is a waste of my time/your time and it can generate ill will, so it is my hope that you will make an effort to create the clearest, cleanest communications as you can. afterall, we areendeavoring to create less and less distortions in our movements towards the one, aren't we?
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>in clarity,
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>seth[end quote]