ADMIN: Less is More (Quoting and Snipping)

[eloiseherisson at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 68452

Greetings from Hexquarters!

As the initial excitement following the landing of the much fabled and long 
awaited phoenix begins to die down, may we take the opportunity to remind you 
of something?

Snipping.

No, no, *not* SHIPping, *snipping*!

Yes. That. Editing out unnecessary material from the posts to which you 
reply.

You know. You read your way through a long message:

He said.
She said.
So-and-so commented.
etc., etc...

And somewhere in the middle of it all is a point that you just *have* to 
answer.

Please folks, before you reply, will you cut down the original message to
*the minimum needed to place your own comments into context*?

At present we seem to be receiving a large number of posts where the quotes 
far, far exceed the new comments in length. We want to read what *you* have to 
say, not what s/he said for the fifth or fiftieth time.

This is a Very High Volume List. It helps our bandwidth, it helps those on 
Digest (who otherwise have to scroll repeatedly through the same posts over and 
over again to get to the new stuff) and it helps the sanity of your Elves if 
everyone abides by our snipping conventions.

And it makes *your* comments stand out much more clearly.

Please assume that anyone reading your post *is* following the thread, but 
remember that they are not mind-readers, so they will not know which precise 
point you are replying to unless you quote it.

Our convention here is to place quotes *before* comments. Please abide by 
this.

Would you also please clearly attribute quotes at the top, preferably cutting 
quotees signatures from the bottom, so that they are not later mistaken for 
the attribution of your own thoughts (trust us, it happens).

What do we mean by quotes before comments and cutting the signature 
and placing it at the top for attribution?  This:



Weezy Elf wrote:
> We have quite a lot of interesting, fun new members, don't we? >>>

We certainly do!  It's been a bit tricky keeping up with all the 
discussion, but it's great to have so many new people to discuss new 
canon with!

--Kelley Elf



With many thanks,

Your List Administration Team


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