Hello everyone!

I hope this will give a little break to the list owners in
needing
to write such messages on an ongoing basis, as well as help
some of us who are unaware of email listserv protocol.

This message relates to people replying to the list without
cutting out people's previous message.

If at all possible, try not to use the *Reply* function that
your
mailer offers when you want to reply to a message on the
list.
If you do however, common practice would be to *Cut* out
the text the previous person wrote. By doing this, you will
avoid
sending a message twice as long as it needs to be and help
keep
people's *In-boxes* down a little.

But what if I want to show what I am replying to?

Easy. You can manually *Cut* out most (or all) of the text
and leave just the pertinent parts. In the case of the
recent
discussion on that petition supporting women in Afghanistan.

I often see people inserting the word ...snip ... before
someone's
previous text. This in WWW talk, means *I have snipped out
text
here to keep things short and sweet*

For people like myself who receive *Digests* of the listserv

messages, I have needed to scroll down screenfuls and
screenfuls of repeated  quoted text, including everyone
who signed that petition.

Unfortunately, I sometimes find myself then deleting the
entire digest of messages from the previous day, therefore
perhaps missing a message hidden in between those long
repeated ones.

In summary: If you can, cut out most of the previous message

or better yet, if you can:

1. Do not use *Reply*

2. Simply write a new message from scratch to the list
(remember to address it to: [log in to unmask])

3. Add a short intro sentence introducing your message like:

... in response to the recent petition on women in
Afghanistan,
I offer the following information relating to the Email
address....

4. If you do use the *Reply* function, keep in mind that
your
mailer is probably configured by default to quote the
previous
message you are replying to. (Thus the need to cut it out
sometimes) If you're adventurous, check out your settings
under *Edit + Preferences* if you use Netscape. There are
similar functions with other mailers I am sure.

5. Lastly, remember that we're all still learning as we go
here
and making mistakes is 100% OK.

I've enjoyed this list a great deal since the beginning and
look
forward to continued discussions. Hope this tip helps some
of us and thank you to those more experienced users in our
online community for your patience and support.

JM Dupont

Jean-Marc Dupont
Principal
The Alder Group
   ...promoting health and innovation
Tel +613.241.8755 Fax +613.241.8847
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