[net.news] Basenotes in Responses

wmartin@brl-vgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (03/17/84)

It looks like most people who include basenotes are using some sort
of software or editor that puts a ">" on the left margin of the 
included passage. So why not put a new comand in the next version
of readnews that would IGNORE any line beginning with ">" and not
display it to the reader? Then everybody could have the news 
displayed the way they want!

Put the comand at the individual item display command level (where
you now type "n<CR>" or "<CR>" to skip or read an item), so the
reader can detect a series or group with included basenotes and
read or reject them at will.

Myself, I usually don't like basenotes -- I can remember enough to
know what is being discussed, as long as the subject is informative
and the item itself well-written. (Items like "That's right!" don't
qualify...)

Make the machine do the work -- that's what it is for.

Will Martin

woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods) (03/19/84)

  Some reasons people include the original article in their replies are:

  1) People at sites who did not receive the original will know what the hell
     the author is talking about (after all, the net is not perfect); 

  2) Sometimes knowing the exact text of the original is critical to understand-
     ing the reply;

  3) Articles sometimes arrive here (a backbone site) many days after the 
     original, and not all of us have memories good enough to remember
     everything that has been said in a discussion.

  I favor continued inclusion of passages from the original article. However,
I do agree that people often post the whole original when a relevant
sentence or paragraph would be sufficient.

			    GREG
-- 
{ucbvax!hplabs | allegra!nbires | decvax!stcvax | harpo!seismo | ihnp4!stcvax}
       		        !hao!woods