Michael O'Hair

I'll try once more to point out the obvious: The problem is that the

"signal to noise" ratio goes down drastically when people use the

Reply key without thinking and recycle the original message.



The original size of this message as I got it was 1,949 lines of text

totaling 80,655 bytes. I did a fast edit on the file to remove such

stuff as ads for someone's sponsor(?):



-- Support our Sponsor ------------------------------------=20

Imagine a credit card with a 0% introductory APR on purchases

(for=20

complete pricing information and important terms and conditions,=20

please click on the link below). Apply now for an Aria Visa!=20



and such popular stuff as passing unreadable files around:



Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="TEXT.htm"





PCFET0NUWVBFIEhUTUwgUFVCTElDICItLy9XM0MvL0RURCBXMyBIVE1MLy9FTiI+DQo8SFRNTD4N



CjxIRUFEPg0KDQo8TUVUQSBjb250ZW50PSJ0ZXh0L2h0bWw7IGNoYXJzZXQ9aXNvLTg4NTktMSIg



aHR0cC1lcXVpdj1Db250ZW50LVR5cGU+DQo8TUVUQSBjb250ZW50PSciTVNIVE1MIDQuNzIuMzEx



MC43IicgbmFtZT1HRU5FUkFUT1I+DQo8L0hFQUQ+DQo8Qk9EWSBzdHlsZT0iRk9OVDogOHB0IE1T



The result was 562 lines long and 16,889 bytes in total size. And, if I may

add,

a lot easier to read, even without a thorough cleanup.



The goal of this email group is to share _INFORMATION_ not noise!   This

situation has

occurred many times on the internet over the last twenty years or so. The

solution is

always the same: People who post have to practice good netiquette, and yes,

the principles

and practices thereof are readily available of the net or from your ISP.



The basic rules:



1) Trim your posting. Do not resend the same message over and

over and over.



2) Do not post jpegs, mpegs, binaries, etc., to the group.

Simply state that

such files are available upon request.



The real problem is that this requires some thought and some effort. It's

so much

easier just to hit the "Reply" key.



I'm sure I will get more ad hominem attack and such insightful advice as

"Why not just

hit the delete button?" or the even better "Why just unsubscribe if you

don't like how

things are?" (Both of which I got the last time I made this modest

proposal.)



It is important to remember that the people who use this group are the ones

who have to

police it. Failure to do so can result in this most useful forum being

removed.



Michael O'Hair



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sandy kenny

Note the subject line....This might be a good time to remind folks that

topicaDOTcomTM,Inc allows you the option to subscribe to the "digest" version

of this email group. This free service bundles all of the OBRA posts and

sends them to you as a single email, once a day. That way, your mailbox isn't

clogged with numerous emails, and you can just scroll your way through the

"48-cm bikes" section of the classifieds (oops, I mean news) if you're not

interested. The only downside I can see is that, in the summer, you would

miss Jamie's "quasi-real-time Alpenrose weather reports".



And - hey - with all this frenetic small-motor activity, is anyone actually

out there riding a bike? (Big, analog, two wheeled thingee, no mouse...)

Cheers,

Sandy