Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site jhunix.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!umcp-cs!aplcen!jhunix!ins_akaa
From: ins_akaa@jhunix.UUCP (Kenneth Adam Arromdee)
Newsgroups: net.news.group
Subject: Re: elementary posting rules
Message-ID: <1131@jhunix.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 8-Nov-85 14:53:21 EST
Article-I.D.: jhunix.1131
Posted: Fri Nov  8 14:53:21 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 10-Nov-85 09:21:54 EST
References: <202@bambi.UUCP>
Reply-To: ins_akaa@jhunix.ARPA (Kenneth Adam Arromdee)
Organization: Johns Hopkins Univ. Computing Ctr.
Lines: 38

In article <202@bambi.UUCP> mike@bambi.UUCP (Michael Caplinger) writes:
>Why aren't the following three rules enforced?
...
>2) No automatic quoting of messages.  If people want to quote, make them
>work hard to do it.  Maybe they'll find it easier to paraphrase.
>
>3) No messages with less than X lines of content, for X on the order of
>10.  Content is NOT quotes or signatures.  Maybe that would stop the
>stupid "me too" message from being sent.
>	Michael Caplinger

If someone has to insert a quote by "hand" (i.e., including a file containing
a saved article), how could the program possibly tell that the quote is
not "content"? By checking through every article in every newsgroup to see
if one of them happens to contain the quoted material?

If anything, it seems that this would increase volume, since any posting 
shorter than 10 would have to be padded out. (And I can imagine the traffic 
in semi-illicit programs that would automatically save an article, include
it in a file, add the >'s before each line of the quote, pad the article if
shorter than 10 lines, etc..., that would develop if this idea came through.)

By the way, wouldn't making it "easier to paraphrase" A) discourage point-
by-point rebuttal (effectively meaning that whoever posted the first article
can never be completely rebutted) and B) make it easier to misquote, also?

PS: I am pleased to announce that Johns Hopkins no longer prohibits reading
of net.news or net.news.group, though other groups such as most other
net.news.* subgroups and net.unix are still on the proscribed list.
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------
If you know the alphabet up to 'k', you can teach it up to 'k'.

Kenneth Arromdee
BITNET: G46I4701 at JHUVM and INS_AKAA at JHUVMS
CSNET: ins_akaa@jhunix.CSNET
ARPA: ins_akaa%jhunix@hopkins.ARPA
UUCP: ...{decvax,ihnp4,allegra}!seismo!umcp-cs!aplvax!aplcen!jhunix!ins_akaa