MVPS and others responding to newsgroup posts: please do not truncate

[Norman R. Nager, Ph.D.]

I deeply appreciate the excellent responsiveness and helpfulness of MVPs and
other contributors in these Office newsgroups.

Please consider leaving original posts intact rather than just responding to
a fragment.

I know, one may uncheck the View menu's "unread only" option and drill down
in a discussion to find anything that's been cut out by an MVP or other
participant in that thread but it's a time-consuming inconvenience and
becomes more of a nuisance as hours and days pass. This is especially so
if one has customized the display of discussion threads with View/"Arrange
By"

Please consider that it would be more convenient for to see responses
inserted above, below, or--if responding to just part--next to that part in
the middle of the un-truncated posts. Skimming down through an exchange is
easier and faster than changing one or several view preferences and drilling
back down into a thread.

Respectfully, Norm

 

[Diane Ross]

You are asking water to run uphill.

Everyone seems to have their own preferences. Reply on top, reply below,
snip, quote all. Try looking at it from our perspective. We go nuts with the
forum users never quoting anything. Then there are users that add their
problem in the thread and it could be entirely different or just similar.
They don't give any info on what version of Entourage they are using or the
OS. Sometimes there are so many threads going on under one subject it's
amazing anyone gets an answer. There was one thread recently with over 70
message going back to early January. The original message had been deleted
from the server it was so old. No wonder I get grumpy at times.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

I know, one may uncheck the View menu's "unread only" option and drill down
in a discussion to find anything that's been cut out by an MVP or other
participant in that thread but it's a time-consuming inconvenience and
becomes more of a nuisance as hours and days pass. This is especially so
if one has customized the display of discussion threads with View/"Arrange
By"

Honestly, Norman, I have absolutely no idea what that paragraph means.
My newsreader doesn't *have* a "View" menu...

 

[Sandy Foster]

You are asking water to run uphill.

Everyone seems to have their own preferences. Reply on top, reply below,
snip, quote all. Try looking at it from our perspective. We go nuts with the
forum users never quoting anything. Then there are users that add their
problem in the thread and it could be entirely different or just similar.
They don't give any info on what version of Entourage they are using or the
OS. Sometimes there are so many threads going on under one subject it's
amazing anyone gets an answer. There was one thread recently with over 70
message going back to early January. The original message had been deleted
from the server it was so old. No wonder I get grumpy at times.

And then there are those of us who don't use Entourage at all! <G> I'm
one who appreciates having the messages quoted, since I don't always
have time to read every single one. Knowing that the MVPs have quoted
the issue that they're addressing makes it easier for me to see what's
what.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Hi Norman,

The problem is, people are reading from many different interfaces. If
you use a newsreader, including Entourage, then it's maddening not to
see the context of the post. But if you are using the OfficeForMac.com
forum site, then each thread shows up on a dedicated webpage, and the
other posts are right there, and all the quoted text is a maddening and
ill-formatted waste of space.

Google groups handles this well, showing each thread on a single webpage
but collapsing the quoted text into a single line. I use Thunderbird,
which makes re-sorting the newsgroup so that I can review an entire
thread a lot easier than in Entourage. But there's basically no solution
that will keep everyone happy.

But I'll try harder to stop deleting text.

Daiya

 

[Juergen Fenn]

But I'll try harder to stop deleting text.

Please don't do that. It is a matter of courtesy to delete those parts
of the text that you don't subscribe or reply to so as to render your
posting much easier to read.

Jürgen.

 

[Juergen Fenn]

But I'll try harder to stop deleting text.

Please don't do that. It is a matter of courtesy to delete those parts
of the text that you don't subscribe or reply to so as to render your
posting much easier to read.

What's more, it contradicts RFC 1855:

- If you are sending a reply to a message or a posting be sure you
summarize the original at the top of the message, or include just
enough text of the original to give a context. This will make
sure readers understand when they start to read your response.
Since NetNews, especially, is proliferated by distributing the
postings from one host to another, it is possible to see a
response to a message before seeing the original. Giving context
helps everyone. But do not include the entire original!

http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1855

Jürgen.