[Elfsea] a plea, por favor?

[Dr. C. M. Helm-Clark Ph.D.]

Could I please beg an indulgence, everyone?
The posts have been fast and furious for the
last few days, as we all know.  But could I
please ask that folks try to remember to
trim their posts of previously posted stuff?

A lot of this unfortunate habit of "top posting"
can be laid at the door of the evil Microsoft
(IMHO).  It's an sorry fact of life that some
email programs, including the ubiquitous 
Outbreak...er, I mean Outlook Express will
append whole pervious posts when you hit the
reply button.  When the thing you're replying to
is a mailing list digest, that means these email
programs will append the whole damn digest to
the bottom of your post to the list.  And I know
from unfortunate experience that it is so easy 
to forget to trim the post you're replying to.

Now Outbreak Express is only one of several
email programs that has the "appending an entire
post" to the bottom of your email - but it's
probably the worst of all the culprits.  So if
you're using an email program like Outbreak,
could you please just take a moment before you
start your reply to trim or delete what the
program has appended to the bottem of your post.
All it takes is a CTRL-a followed by a <delete>.
You can then cut and paste just the part of an
email that you want to reply to.

Before programs like Lotus Notes or Outbreak
Express infected the internet, most email
programs were set-up to quote just the portion
of an email you wanted, placing it at the top 
of your reply. Then underneath the quoted text,
you then typed your reply. It's called bottom 
posting (in case you have never run into this
term before) and it's one aspect of net etiquette
that is an endangered species, much to my regret.

There are good email programs out there that
are free and set up for bottom posting, like 
Thunderbird.  You highlight just the text you
want to reply to, hit the reply button and the
highlighted text will be quoted at the top of
your post.  You type your reply immediately
underneath.  (My apologies to the folks who
already know all of this).

It only takes a few more seconds to trim the
entire email that Outbreak & its ilk have appended
(mostly out of sight) at the bottom of your reply. 
So: could folks please try to remember to trim 
unnecessary text before posting an email reply?

Thank you for considering this!

ttfn
Therasia von EyeStrainForReadingTooManyEmails