Excessive inclusion of past posts in new posts

[Volokh, Eugene]

        One alternative to copying-and-pasting text is to do a standard
REPLY, but delete those parts of the original message (which should now
be quoted in the reply) to which you're not responding.  That's what I
usually do, and it turns out to be very easy.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rick A. Swanson [SMTP:raswan0 at POP.UKY.EDU]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 1999 9:59 AM
> To:   CONLAWPROF at listserv.ucla.edu
> Subject:      Excessive inclusion of past posts in new posts
>
> When I opened today's digest of yesterday's CONLAWPROF listserv
> postings, here was the first sentence:
>
> "There are 15 messages totalling 2239 lines in this issue."
>
> Over two thousand lines!  At that length, quite honestly I lose
> interest in spending the time it takes to scroll through the digest to
> try
> and determine the new postings from the old postings.  It appears the
> problem is
> that many (though certainly not all) posters to the list are
> forwarding the
> entire past posting history of a topic thread every time they send a
> new
> post on the topic.  I would gently remind posters to the list that
> they
> should not use "forward" or "reply" when responding to a prior
> posting.
> Instead, please "copy" the text you are responding to and then "paste"
> that
> excerpt
> into your e-mail.  In that way, your e-mail response will include only
> those portions of prior e-mails that you are directly responding to.
> Then,
> listserv subscribers like me who have each day's entire listserv
> postings sent
> as a single e-mail will continue to view reading the daily digest as a
> pleasure
> and not a chore.
>
> Thank you.