signal to noise ratio
signal to noise ratio
- Subject: signal to noise ratio
- From: John Gnaegy <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 14:40:04 -0800
Signal to noise ratio as it applies to mailing list posts, that is. Specifically the length of quotes and sigs.
When you reply to a thread you don't need to quote the entire post, let alone the previous two or three posts, and definitely not the entire previous digest (grr...). Assume that most of us retain the most recent digests or individual messages and can refer to earlier ones if we need to reread an entire previous post. Quoting a couple lines here and there is great, no problem there if you need to reply to several points in a previous post. Think of a quote as a way to jog the reader's memory, as opposed to a full re-education of the subject.
Sigs. Not as much of a problem as overquoting, but worth mentioning. This list is a place for the exchange of information, not banner ads. Networking, making new acquaintances in the field, hooking up to hatch a new business scheme or get a job done, that's fine, go for it, but it doesn't require a multi-page sig advertising your name, location, business hours, favorite color, favorite slogan, top five most useful links, right? The easiest way to contact any of us is through email, and your email address is included with each post you make so you don't even need to add that, you're easily reachable even without a sig. In the interest of legibility of the digests try to keep them reasonably short.
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John Gnaegy
colorsync testing, colorsync user list