Date: Wed, 10 May 1995 17:14:34 +0300
From: eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il (Eli Zaretskii)
To: turnbull AT shako DOT sk DOT tsukuba DOT ac DOT jp
Subject: Re: Header re-writing
Cc: mhr AT sparc DOT SanDiegoCA DOT ATTGIS DOT COM, djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu

Comments:

> Now to the meat: how about adding Mark's reply to the FAQ?  I'm not
> sure how to write it up; it's clearly a personal opinion thing.

I'll try to make a couple of suggestions on ``how to make your personal
contribution to bashing the mail explosion problem'' and put them into
the next revision of the FAQ.

>    STOP REPLYING TO THE LIST!
>
> Sometimes seeing the wrong answer helps somebody else figure out the
> right answer.
> ......
>
>     Usenet netiquette, and the common courtesy of minimizing mailing
>     list traffic, calls for you to send your responses to the POSTER

I don't quite agree.  In the utopian world where everybody is a
practicing philosopher, you might expect from everyone to live up to this
standard.  However, in this real world, we can demand  this but won't
ever get it.  Usenet netiquette was written for Newsgroups which feature
much more intense traffic than even DJGPP list.  I do agree with the
above principle, but I also find this list does fairly well in that
most of the messages carry real info which is usefull (IMHO) for many
subscribers, and not only for the originator of the thread.

>     The main reason traffic on this list is so high that everyone just
>     has to get their $.02 in and most seem to need to make this sum
>     public.
>
>  This is true, notwithstanding my previous comment.

I disagree.  I think that this list has much higher standards than most
Newsgroups I saw (check out the garbage that flows on alt.programmer.msdos).
I think that most people on the list only reply to whatever threads they
really have something to say about.  One technique which helps (and which
I practice) is to read ALL of your mail before you start replying.  This
way, you don't add to the traffic on questions which has already been
answered.

> My main disagreement with your position is that the DJGPP list reminds
> me of the student offices I hung around in when I was in college and
> graduate school.  I learn a lot from just listening in on talk of
> others and butting in occasionally.

I second this.  If this list weren't like this, I, for one thing, wouldn't
be able to compile a FAQ list within 9 months from joining the DJGPP
community (and no, it's NOT a boy!).