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[GMCnet] Admin Notes - Message length, quoting, attachments, etc. [message #85175]

Tue, 18 May 2010 21:15

Patrick Flowers

Messages: 195
Registered: February 2004

Karma: -24

Senior Member

The GMCnet guidelines are posted at:

http://www.gmcnet.org/gmcnetguidelines.html

I've seen quite a few messages lately that either were over the 15kb limit
or had binary attachments(photos) - those with attachments also happen to
be way over the 15kb limit. It appears many subscribers don't really
understand how this list works or why it's set up the way it is.

Some background. The list basically has three different formats served by
two different machines. The email side is comprised of "real-time"(or
"reflector") and "digest" subscribers. In addition, there is a separate
system that houses the GMC Forum, which mirrors the email list and allows
web access. "Real-time" subscribers get a copy of every email as soon as
it hits the server. Digest subscribers get a compilation of emails once
or twice a day. This compilation is basically all the emails end-to-end
in a long text document - keep that point in mind.

GMCnet is a plain text medium exclusively. Non-plain text email formats
still rely on the ascii format, but manage their formatting by adding
large numbers of additional characters to instruct the recipient machine
how to display the content. In the case of MS "Rich Text"(Outlook's
default format), this results in emails that are more than twice as large
as a plain text version. Since the digest is plain text exclusively, all
that formatting chaff would show up in the digest if allowed. By the same
token, pictures and other binary attachments are also encoded in ascii
text. The average short plain text email is about 4kb. Just imagine 60kb
of pure gibberish in plain text. Another issue is the bandwidth consumed.
Instead of a 4kb email sent to 300 recipients, it's now a 64kb email to
300 recipients.

The 15kb limit is mainly there to reduce the amount of quoted text. Very
rarely will an original message exceed the limit - I usually approve those
with the knowledge that resulting replies will likely bounce. BTW,
quoting the entire digest in a reply will exceed the limit every time...

This brings us to the subject of "trimming quotes". The majority of email
programs will "quote" the original email when replying. There are many
formats, but the most common is a special character(often ">") inserted at
the beginning of each line or original text. When replying to an email,
it's considered proper netiquette to trim extraneous quoted material. For
example, if I were to post the text of the Gettysburg address and you
wanted to elaborate on "our forefathers", then you would delete all but
that passage from the reply.

It only takes a minute to trim your quotes and those trying to read your
comments will greatly appreciate it.

Patrick
--
GMCnet Listmaster
'73 CanyonLands
Tyrone GA

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Patrick Flowers
GMCnet Listmaster
'73 CanyonLands
Tyrone, GA