FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION: I was just wondering what do you have against
quotes?  Is it the copy right issue? If so I understand!


RESPONSE: There is no rule against using quotes.  The policy is about excessive
quoting.  Often when people reply to a message they quote extracts from the
message to which they are replying.  If it is a very short message, then the
quoted extract might be most of the message.  But, if they are replying to a
long message, then they should edit and minimize the quoted parts.  They should
almost always prune away the original message taglines.

Sometimes people try to reply to a message found in a digest and in doing so
they quote the entire 20-40k digest in their reply.  This is very wasteful and
annoying.  They should take the time to edit and quote only the small portion
relevant to their reply.  Often when they quote an entire digest their message
is rejected automatically and is forwarded only to the Forum Manager for
inspection.  This needlessly increases the workload on the manager.

Sometimes people decide to quote entire messages by forwarding them to the
forum.  This can be annoying.  Often when they forward messages, the message
header information is converted to text and shown in the body of the message. 
That causes the Internet Address and routing information of the original writer
to become displayed in the forum's web archives.  On rare occasions the original
writer objects to having their messages forwarded without their prior knowledge
or permission and they complain.  Again, that can increase the workload on the
Forum Manager.  Rather than forwarding messages, it is better to take the time
to edit and quote a limited extract from the portion that is of most interest. 
Or, explain the content and reference where the original message can be found.

The reasons are several why this policy exist.  They include:

 * Quoting increases the work for our mail servers.

 * Quoting increases the download time and slows the mail.

 * Quoting increases the archive storage space needed.

 * Excessive quoting isn't necessary.

 * Excessive quoting can be frustrating and confusing to the reader.

 * Excessive quoting and forwarding can cause copyright arguments.


The Forum Policy about quoting reads as follows:

"Don't quote excessively. Most email programs automatically quote the whole
message when you reply. In an archived Forum this is wasteful and can be
confusing. Quote the relevant portions only. Delete extraneous material. Excess
quoting is annoying."


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