Re: Bad reply practice (OT)

[dewar@gnat.com (Robert Dewar)]

"Chad R. Meiners" <crmeiners@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<aapbv1$2lv9$1@msunews.cl.msu.edu>...

> I don't think that it has become any worst than before.  Perhaps since you
> ignore some threads in CLA, you are experiencing a higher hit ratio.
> Anyway, you still make a valid point about the practice of including the
> only the text being replied to.

Probably it is because more people are using tools that automatically quote
stuff. I know for example that many of the news readers that I used to use (I
now use Google) would monitor quotes and question or reject posts with an
excessive ratio of quotes to text.

For me, a reasonable guideline is that a post should never have more quoted
text than non-quoted text. Far more than fifty percent of messages on CLA
from a little statistical sample I did just now violate this rule.

We have threaded messages here. Furthermore, messages almost always have a
message identifier at the top (as this one does), so all you have to do in
the news group context is to quote enough to make it clear what you are 
responding to. If someone wants to see the entire message you are responding
to they can easily do so.