[meteorite-list] OT: Netiquette

[Matson, Robert]

Hi All,

I agree on the general subject of blindly using mail program reply
templates.  If everyone on this list did this (and I'm afraid quite
a few of you do), each new message would become its own archive of
all messages up to that point.  Not only is this is a monotonically
increasing waste of bandwidth with each response, its a huge waste
of archive space.  If each reply in a thread added the same number
of lines (say, X lines), then the length of the Nth message is
N*X; *however*, the length of the entire thread will be 0.5 *
(N^2 + N)*X lines!  For example, if X is 5 lines (5 new lines per
reply), and the thread length is 10 messages, there are really only
50 lines of information, but the archive will take up 550 lines.
This is why sensible lists require that you only quote the portion
of a message or messages necessary for clarity.

IMHO, top-posting and bottom-posting are equally rude to your
audience.  It demonstrates laziness on your part at the expense
of the hundreds of people who subscribe.  --Rob