Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!umich!caen.engin.umich.edu!srvr1!chrisl From: chrisl@caen.engin.umich.edu (Chris Lang) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Verbosity and quoted old news Message-ID: <1990Apr10.214650.24520@caen.engin.umich.edu> Date: 10 Apr 90 21:46:00 GMT References: <23800@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <212@caslon.cs.arizona.edu> <1990Apr8.231542.23330@wam.umd.edu> <1294@trlluna.trl.oz> Sender: news@caen.engin.umich.edu (Mr. Usenet) Organization: University of Michigan Engineering, Ann Arbor Lines: 34 In article <1294@trlluna.trl.oz> soh@shiva.trl.oz (kam hung soh) writes: >I am just an average programmer who wants a bit of light reading >during lunch, so I do not like wading through pages of repeated >text and wasting my time. I appeal to authors to show some >restraint and consider who the readers of their work will be >before sending an article or a follow up. > >What do other readers feel about this matter? I feel exactly the opposite. If I see a message which is obviously a followup to a previous one, and I can't tell what the referenced message was about in the first few lines, I chuck it. Unless the message is a general comment on a major thread of conversation, or the author paraphrases the referenced message, I have better things to do with my time than try to dig back through one of the hundreds of messages I've read in the past couple days. If I want light reading I'll read the newspaper, but I read Usenet for information. (This is not a flame of any sort; I'm merely pointing out that some people have different ideas of "light reading" :-) I would agree, though, that including over a page of quoted material without a single comment on it is pretty absurd, it's doubtful that much context information is needed, unless it's a VERY heavy concept. And then, of course, there are those people who insist on quoting the entire article verbatim and tack on a "I think this is a good idea, too" at the end or something; these people should be forced to read Apple press releases until they can do it with a straight face. -Chris -- Chris Lang, University of Michigan, College of Engineering +1 313 763 1832 4622 Bursley, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109 chrisl@caen.engin.umich.edu WORK: National Center for Manufacturing Sciences, 900 Victors Way, Suite 226, Ann Arbor, MI, 48108 +1 313 995 0300 "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." - Ralph Waldo Emerson