Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att-cb!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!tektronix!reed!psu-cs!qiclab!leonard
From: leonard@qiclab.UUCP (Leonard Erickson)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: The 4-line and 50% rules considered harmful
Message-ID: <1165@qiclab.UUCP>
Date: 2 Apr 88 22:46:32 GMT
References: <1501@looking.UUCP> <211@ateng.UUCP> <4688@teddy.UUCP>
Reply-To: leonard@qiclab.UUCP (Leonard Erickson)
Organization: Qic Laboratories, Portland, Oregon.
Lines: 21

In article <4688@teddy.UUCP> jpn@teddy.UUCP (John P. Nelson) writes:
<>Seriously, the only real effect of the 4-line rule has been to make posters
<>include their signatures by hand.  The only real effect of the 50% rule has
<>been to force people to use their own quotation symbols.
<
<I think this is untrue.
<
<Oh, sure, the experienced users know how to work around these limits.
<But the rules were put in place to keep down the noise from the
<UNexperienced users.  Remember how many articles used to have 100 lines
<of text and a one line response?  I remember!

Right, now instead of seeing 100 lines of "quote" and 1 line of response
you get 100 lines of quote, 1 line of response and 100 lines of "inews fodder"


-- 
Leonard Erickson		...!tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard
CIS: [70465,203]		...!tektronix!reed!qiclab!leonard
"I used to be a hacker. Now I'm a 'microcomputer specialist'.
You know... I'd rather be a hacker."