webber@brandx.rutgers.edu (Webber) (11/14/87)
In article <1987Nov11.163049.15651@sq.uucp>, msb@sq.uucp (Mark Brader) writes: > > > Please ... > > > do NOT post articles in this group that give a day of the week only! > > Why not have your news reader back up to the beginning of the article? Then > > you can just look at that nifty little "Date:" header line. ... > Sure, but it takes more time for lots of people reading the article to > do that than it does for the sender to supply the date information in > the first place. It is the poster's responsibility to make things > easier for the reader, not the other way around. That's why we include Yes. Clearly what should have been done is two copies of the entire message should have been appended prior to sending. That way, rather than have to go back to track down details - the reader could just continue reading. Of course, they might miss something on the second reading also, so three copies is probably best. This should be an easy mod to the news software. > text rather than having them use the References line (and why we don't > include it in larger volumes than necessary, too). NO. The reason for this is because there was a time (yesterday at noon) when there was no guarentee that a reply would make it to a site before the original. Also, there are still a few sites on the net that expire news messages, and on those backwater sites (it has something to do with 16 bit pointers), you can't expect to be able to find copies of the messages referred to in the References line. In alt.hypertext there is discussion of fixing this. > Besides, omitting the date is inviting your article to be misread > if it gets delayed more than a week. And please use the FULL date. After all, if a message dated 11 Nov 87 gets delayed more than a century, it could be misinterpreted. Also, as a convenience, you should indicate where you are vis a vis the international date line. -------- BOB (webber@aramis.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!webber)