article replying/usenet

[P E Smee]

In article <Feb.22.19.12.14.1991.28929 at pilot.njin.net> dblack at pilot.njin.net (David Alan Black) writes:
>
>Specifically, is there a particular program which generates the line
>"In article <whatever> soandso at machine.etc (So and So) writes:"
>Or does each respondent synthesize this by hand????

On both the newsreaders I'm familiar with (rn and trn), using a capital
letter for the followup and reply commands generates this stuff and marks
the inclusion (with > by default).  That is, for both:

    f    puts you into an editor buffer to input a followup
    F    As 'f', but with the '<fred> writes' and the quoted original
    r    puts you into an editor buffer to input a personal mail reply
    R    As 'r', but with the ....

Some points of etiquette.  If you are including parts from an original
message you should trim it so you've only included the parts you need
to establish the context; otherwise things get tedious.  However, you
should be careful NOT to trim the original in a way which distorts what
the original said.  When references get deeply nested, they can often
usefully be trimmed even more, but you need to be careful that you
don't end up making it look like the wrong person said something.

-- 
Paul Smee, Computing Service, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1UD, UK
 P.Smee at bristol.ac.uk - ..!uunet!ukc!bsmail!p.smee - Tel +44 272 303132