"Martin Hotze" wrote in message
...
On 26 Jul 2003 19:37:13 -0500, Steve House wrote:

you can't trim the quoted test, can you?



Sure I can. Is this better? Now, of course, no one reading this message
sees any of what you wrote except that one line and unless they have been
faithfully reading this thread for the last several days they have no idea
of the contexts of your remark or my reply to it. I suspect that the vast
majority of people reading these words are lurkers who visit maybe once or
twice a week. Most ISPs that I'm aware of have just a few days dwell time
for the messages on their news servers. By tomorrow or the day after many
people reading this would not be able to go back and retrieve your message
that prompted this response to if they wished to see what you had written.
They certainly would not be able to get back to the even earlier messages in
the thread. (Yes, I know about Google and I know other subscription servers
have much longer retention times, that's one reason I use one myself). By
not trimming the quotes to any great extent, OTOH, other readers in the
thread would be able to see your comments in their entirety, and if
interested my comments that had prompted yours and so forth back in line,
without have to search Google and irrespective of whether their ISP is
retaining the thread or not. I've suggested that when data comms were
expensive the "no top post, trim all the quotes to the bone" approach made
perfect sense but now that data transfer is cheaper than dirt the
disadvantages outway the advantages.