Hi all,
I wonder if I'm alone in sighing when confronted by long walls of text
on this list?
Given that others have already chimed in, apparently not. I've uttered my sigh or two as well, especially if the topic is of interest. However I can't expect everyone to communicate the same way (some people like detail, others have no patience for that). Some of these long posts are really detailed and show thought and attention that went into them. Where there is agreement on these points, that should have a positive impact on the length of a thread...
...when there is disagreement however, it tends to lead to the reply being lengthy as well, and not going back to a condensed form to discuss fundamentals.
If others, like me, would like to see crisper communications, please
let's consider these three tricks:
1) focus on one topic in an email, rather than attempting to 'boil the
ocean'. If necessary split your message into a series of mails.
2) When replying, use <snip> and only include the specific comment you
are responding to
This one is tricky. I used to [...] but noticed that some people lose context, which means additional replies to re-introduce that context. And given that modern mail clients take care of this for you, conveniently offering a ... to click on to see more context, it is easy to slip up here.
3) If there really needs to be a longer doc, stick it in the wiki, or a
blog post - then summarise the key points in your email and provide a
link
I think that I prefer to see:
a) a carefully chosen subject, and a subject line change when the topic changes - this allows for easy filtering/muting, and acts as your first indication whether you care
b) a summary section on top - not all replies require this, but I admit that it's useful to see from the start whether someone agrees/disagrees/is refining the proposal
c) keeping everything on list, so that we have a coherent archive with a single lifetime.
br
Paul
Cheers,
Sander
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