Keep it short
Wendell Cochran
atrypa at eskimo.com
Sat Dec 6 19:50:02 UTC 2008
> Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2008 13:57:52 -0500
> From: Steven Vollom <stevenvollom at sbcglobal.net>
> . . . do you mean when a post gets a lot of response back and forth,
> do you want me to erase the answered portions and only return
> current active questions and answers, or do you mean reword
what I say?
Don't rewrite.
Do keep readers in mind.
Review paragraph by paragraph, & line by line. Sentence by sentence
is likely too much work, but if a paragraph trails off -- well, it's
easy to kill from the end. Do that.
Omit intervening conventions like 'Hi Jim' & 'Best wishes'.
Reduce repetition & useless detail.
Retain essential information. Ask yourself: What does a new reader,
entering in mid-thread, need to know? Will you force him to the
archives? Will repetition bore the regulars?
(That can be a grey area. Make your best guess & move on.)
One post, one subject.
Subject lines, too, should be short & exact.
If discussion drifts off topic, invoke '(was: . . .)'.
Bear in mind that economy of expression has always been important in
Unix. Oh, Dennis Ritchie has said that he regretted reducing the name
of one command to 'creat' -- but that was as much a reminder as a
joke.
Wendell Cochran
West Seattle
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