[net.religion] proposing a POLL on article lengths

avi@pegasus.UUCP (10/15/83)

I am volunteering to run YAP (Yet Another Poll) specifically for
net.religion readers. We have all noticed how some articles have been
growing exponentially. The recent submission by Paul Dubuc was 746 lines
long!!!! I haven't had time to read it, but I did glance at it. It is long
because it tries to totally answer a letter directed at him --- and
incorporates the letter into itself. Many debates have gone on long enough
so that I, for one, get confused about who is quoting whom in a recursive
fashion.

I typically send "long articles" in the 50 - 150 line range. Anything over
300 lines makes me want to type "n". I want to find out what the upper limit
of most peoples tolerance is, and lower limit, if you have one. Please send
me (or my office-mate Peter Silverman, pegasus!pete - if you would prefer)
answers to the following:
  1 - What is the upper limit in lines that you typically want to read?
  2 - Do you save longer articles for "later", or just dispose of them?
  3 - Does the Subject line or name of the author influence your decision?
  4 - Do you have different standards for other newsgroups? Explain.
  5 - Any other comments such as "If it involves Mormons and is NOT by Tim
      Maroney and is under 5 lines long, I won't read it".

All answers will be kept confidential, and the results will be posted to the
net. I will send a "reply" to anyone who sends their choices. If you have
not heard from me, please resubmit along a different path. PLEASE do not
reply directly to net.religion.
					Avi
P.S. The above is not meant as a criticism of Paul Dubuc. I won't tell you
what my usual cutoff point is, but others have already crossed it. Paul and
I have exchanged some private mail about other things, and one reason I have
not been replying to him on the net is BECAUSE of the length my message
would have to be.

P.P.S. I hope the contents of my signature file will be helpful:

-- 
-=> Avi E. Gross @ AT&T Information Systems Laboratories (201) 576-6241
    suggested paths:	[ihnp4, allegra!houxn, cbosg, hogpc, ...]!pegasus!avi