[AC-Admins] Quoting style for mailing lists, newsgroups, and forums

[Scott Garron]

Solei wrote:

> To be honest, with all the advancements in e-mail clients, and the fact 
> that this list is not digested, I didn't bother to do anything with the 
> quotes in the text, since I didn't think everyone here would be such 
> rule nazis about it, and to be honest, the only time I'd ever been 
> called on it was in a yahoo group where digested messages were 
> unreadable due to the fact they couldn't parse HTML anyway. :p

      It doesn't really have anything to do with how advanced e-mail 
clients are or whether or not the list is digested.  It's just a matter 
of readability and waste.  Quoting an entire message + signature lines + 
mailing list managment lines is just a bunch of clutter and is 
completely unnecessary.

> If it's a big deal, I'll make a point to quote my messages as you 
> request.  I wasn't even aware there was a "proper way" to quote past 
> text. X3

      There used to be a site at http://learn.to/quote (an 
easy-to-remember URL), but now it's just an advertisement site. 
Anyway...  A quick search on Google for "+learn.to +quote" or 
"+Netiquette +quote +reply" (or something along those lines) will yield 
numerous results which outline proper quoting etiquette and they all 
basically say the same things.

      I've been sending and receiving electronic text communications 
since 1985, and back then, almost everyone followed the same set of 
rules.  Network communications etiquette has kinda been eclipsed by the 
masses since then, and the proportion of folks who know and follow the 
old style guides to ones who aren't even aware of them has gotten 
staggering.

      In the end, it's not a "big deal".  It just makes it easier to 
process when your eyes don't have to sift through to find the signal in 
the noise, especially when reviewing an archive.  Such as:
http://lists.anthrochat.net/pipermail/admins/

--
Scott 'Simba' Garron