This discussion of what listowners have tried, in attempts to cut down
on gratuitous, excess quoting (just hit the reply button, don't think
about it, even though you hate it when others do it) reminds me of all
the techniques I tried before I started the serious editing.

Footers (bottom_banners) on the topic were as ignored for that as for
almost everything else (basically, totally ignored).  I no longer mess with
them as routine items (one sees a footer all the time, ignore it, don't
look to see if it has changed, or really, pay much attention to it all).
Putting all the nifty "contact" info in a footer to each item has never, in
my experience, reduced the number of clueless commands, questions, etc.,
which are missent.  I post a "basic commands" item to lists once a month
or so and achieve about the same level of compliance.  I don't lecture
in those on quoting, signing postings, etc.

I used to nag folk about such things on the list.  It just promoted gripes
about my constant nagging, which achieving no compliance.  Someone (five
or eight years ago) suggested enlisting a corps of subscribers to send
private notes to whomever violated whatever rule, and the violators would
stop violating (he said it worked well for him).  I could never get anyone
to volunteer to do that on a consistent basis.  If I sent private reminders
(and to be effective must send them *every* time) it was "Why are you
picking on me?".

Ok, so, try a little editing in advance, do for them what they won't do.
Did that on a limited scale, for the worst stuff.  No gripes, list worked
better.  A little more, still no serious gripes.  Hmm, they don't seem to
mind the editing, but they do mind being nagged all the time.  Asked the
digest subscribers what they would like to see.  What they wanted to see
would make the distirbuted items better for the MAIL subscribers, also.
So, I edit everything before distribution, following the guidelines I
have developed over four or so years (no, I can't send them to you, I've
never written them down; they consist of such things as "there will be only
one 'sig' per posting, which will be that of the poster, and it will be the
final element of the posting, no exceptions").  I could send sample digests
(I save the digests, at another address, for my lists for a couple of
months in case there are problems) privately to those interested in what
they look like.

Oh, and someone mentioned a ratio of quoted to original material.  Back in
the mid - later '90s had a subscriber to one of my lists whose mail system
had a filter which tried to judge such things and routinely rejected most
postings (I think it was anything over 50% quoting, don't recall exactly).
I don't know how the system determined what was quoted material and what
wasn't, but it routinely rejected items with one or two lines of quoting
and many lines of original material.  And *sometimes* two lines of quote
from the prior with one line of reply is totally appropriate.

Douglas Winship    [log in to unmask]