[Open-access] Crossposting to list and quoting

[Nicholas Barnes]

On 29 Jan 2014, at 10:21, Peter Murray-Rust <pm286 at cam.ac.uk> wrote:

> Also be careful in quoting. Only quote the material relevant and snip it where possible. This makes it easier for those who (say) need audio readers or people wishing to summarise discussions. 

Absolutely.  Also, please, please, use standard quoting conventions.  For about three decades, quoted lines have been preceded with a greater-than symbol and usually a space, like my above quotation of Peter’s words (your mail viewer may display this in various ways - mine indents the quoted text and shows a solid bar in the left-hand margin - but that’s the underlying format).  All email software understands this format (including accessibility tools such as audio readers) and so do all experienced email users.  Any other method of quoting risks authorship becoming confused, or your contributions being overlooked.

See http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/email-style.html for a document about 25 years old which describes this convention in much more detail and gives some history.
-- 
Nick Barnes
Director, Climate Code Foundation
All parts of this message created by me are licensed CC-BY:
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