Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!bbn!bbn.com!mesard From: mesard@bbn.com (Wayne Mesard) Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions Subject: Re: Filler lines Summary: Someone gives a simple answer to a simple question and Usenet instantly ceases to exist. Message-ID: <44579@bbn.COM> Date: 21 Aug 89 20:04:02 GMT References: <21376@paris.ics.uci.edu> <21386@paris.ics.uci.edu> Sender: news@bbn.COM Reply-To: mesard@BBN.COM (Wayne Mesard) Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA Lines: 20 David Levine writes: > My question was why changing the citation >character is better than adding filler lines. Because adding filler lines makes the article longer and thus more expensive to ship around the net, store on disk, etc. In short, for the same reasons that these morons have been frothing about .signature files lately. Changing the quote character from ">" to something else doesn't change the size of the article. [Not to mention the fact that it takes no extra effort on the reader's part to deal with a different quote character. The same can't be said for filler lines which one must explicitly wade through.] Disclaimer: Did I say "morons?" What I meant was "concerned participants." -- unsigned *Wayne_Mesard(); "Brain and brain! What is brain?" Mesard@BBN.COM BBN, Cambridge, MA -Kara, Leader of the Eymorgs