** Sometime around 18:08 -0500 10/25/98, Don Wiss said:

>Glenn Alperin <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>Karen Strauss wrote:
>>
>>>Too bad we can't just set something in the list header that says if
>>>there are more than XX lines of quoted materials prefaced by > then
>>>return the message to the poster with a rejection notice explaining
>>>about quoting and how it clutters a list.
>>
>>determine when there is quoted text?  Not all e-mail software will add ">"
>
>Okay, not all use that character. So the feature that Karen is requesting
>will only catch 90% of them. But 90% is a lot better then catching none at
>all.

Yes, this is exactly what [name of other list server deleted] does, and
I'd  guess that it catches well over 90% of those who are fond of quoting
the entire post (etc.). The only down side is the tendency for some people
to get around the quoting limit by inserting "bogus" lines, like:

>text
>text
>text
[line inserted for list server]  <-- yes, this is exactly how some of them
>text                                word it <smack>
>text
>text

Even worse, other synaptically-challenged subscribers "learn" from such
tricks, so the prevalence of bogus lines increases rather quickly without
list owner intervention. Aside from that (and even that is easily handled
directly by the list owner), editing skills have improved tenfold on my
lists since I instituted quoting limits.

- Vince