[Buddha-l] Message lengths

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Thu, 2006-02-02 at 09:09 +0700, Chris wrote:

> I recently replied to a post by RPH (on Emerson). My comment was
> short; less than a dozen words. I received a 'Bounce' and then a
> 'Reject' in response to my reply. It was explained to me that *my*
> message was too long. My less than a dozen words was too long a
> message?!

Probably the problem is that your message was sent in two formats: pure
text (a.k.a ASCII) format and HTML. The size limit is quite generous,
and just about the only way to go over it is to write either a 10-page
message OR to have lots of bulky HTML code of the sort tht is
automatically generated by some e-mail clients. Most clients will allow
you to set your options to disable HTML. (As far as I know, AOL does not
allow this, but I think it is alone in this.) 

One thing you might do is to put buddha-l in your address book, and
click the box that says something like "recipient prefers plain text
messages." That way you can send HTML messages (while allow you to
include photos, fancy text formatting and viruses in your outgoing
messages) to most people, but HTML-free messages to buddha-l.

> Perhaps it was RPH's message, which I attached, that was too long.

That is a factor, but good e-mail citizenship entails cutting out
everything from a previous message except the lines you are explicitly
responding to. If you send back an entire message with only twelve words
of your own commentary, you are putting an unnecessary strain on the
resources of the Internet.

If you e-mail client allows it, please set it to include messages being
responded to so they occur in-line, not as attachments.

If you are unsure how to do any of this, write to me privately. I can
probably help people sort out the settings on Evolution mail,
Thunderbird mail and Outlook Express. Other systems may well baffle me,
but perhaps we can solicit help from others who have figured them out.

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico