...

[Ed Nather]

> Fortunately, unedited inclusions of the original article are relatively
> rare, although not rare enough.

It's going to get worse.  We just installed the newest version of readnews,
and I found to my surprise that the "f" function not only puts me in the
editor, but DUPLICATES THE ORIGINAL MESSAGE IN ITS ENTIRETY, indented with
">" characters, and ending with

             ***REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE***

I predict most people will be too lazy to do the necessary editing to keep
the net from being flooded with replications.  There should also be a mechanism
like a dead-man's switch, so the user must do something to each line he wants
to keep, and have the rest disappear -- like replace the ">" with another
character.

I personally prefer to hear both sides of a phone conversation, so dialog
on the net is improved, in my view, by EDITED inclusion of the item being
commented upon.  But I worry this "improvement" is counter-productive.

-- 
Ed Nather
Astronony Dept, U of Texas @ Austin
{allegra,ihnp4}!{noao,ut-sally}!utastro!nather