Length of messages

[Russ Irwin]

I'm  writing this in response to Linda Davidson's message a couple of days ago regarding "quoting"
when responding to a message. As a "soon to be pilgrim" in a few months I find this listserver very
valuable for all the information I am getting out of it, and I'd hate to see anything happen to it.

I hope I'm not out of line here, and if I am I hope that Linda corrects me, but I see that some are
still including the *whole* message from the person that they are responding to. For instance, my
software for reading the messages shows the total number of lines of the message. An example would
be a message that has 100 lines, but only a *few* of those lines are from the person responding. The
remainder is the *whole* quoted message of the first person. I can't know what software everyone is
using, but if you would only "Page Down" before you send the message to see if you have the
origional message attached to it, I think this would solve much of the problem.

I also feel that just including a *brief* quote from the origional message (NOT everything) is also
helpful. For example, if I was responding to my first message ever here, I might quote, and then
respond with, the following:

>I'll be walking the pilgrimage starting from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port.
>I plan to begin in early May and take 30-40 days.

To which I'd respond with blah, blah, blah :-)

Please don't misunderstand me! I love this listserver and don't want to see anything happen to it!

Russ Irwin