Amatuer Archivists (again)

[Tim McNerney <TIM@MIT-MC.ARPA>]

I sympathize with those of you who have short terminals and have to wade
through pages and pages of "context."  (About 1/2 of my terminal's ram is
shot, so mine is about 14 lines tall).  But I also agree with Steele.

Perhaps the problem lies with the conventions we use for replying to mail.
If, instead of putting the reply at the end of the message (as is so easy to
do when using BABYL, RMAIL and ZMAIL), we put our reply at the beginning, we
could have the best of both worlds: Immediacy and Context.

	Tim

    Date: Tue, 26 Nov 85 15:04 EST
    From: Guy Steele <gls at THINK-AQUINAS.ARPA>

    On a more serious note, I receive anywhere between 20 and 100 messages a
    day by electronic mail.  Not infrequently there are three or four
    distinct conversations on the common-lisp mailing list alone, and then
    there are other mailing lists, as well as mail related to work I
    actually get paid for.  I often find it helpful to have some previous
    context for each message.  Maybe I tend to overdo it because I rely on
    it more than others do.  I'm sorry that I upset you.
    --Guy