Adding one (or several) lines underneath someone else's posting
an4...@anon.penet.fi
I have posted once before about the problem mentioned in the subject
line. A couple of very kind persons responded by e-mail and I thank
them. However, no doubt because of my own inexperience, I was unable to
determine whether they had provided an answer to my question. So, I
take the liberty of asking it again. (my apologies for posting anony-
mously; being very new at all this, I find this the easiest way to
post. I'm just now trying to familiarize myself with rn, nn, trn, vi,
emacs and all that stuff...).
Here then is my problem: often, one sees postings and underneath, some-
body else has added another comment. It could be just one or two words,
or it could be several sentences. Often, the reply is an answer to
the original poster's query. At other times, it is a silly comment,
or an immature insult or whatever. (that's not the issue here).
My question: how is that done?
The interesting thing about this is the fact that ONLY the appended
line (or few words, or sentences) appears, without any indication of
the identity or address of the person who added it. And that is, in
fact, the second part of my question. Apart from the fact that I don't
know how - technically - the above is done, I also don't understand
how one can send away anything from his/her own computer for posting
(in this case, "for adding a line or comment"), without there also
appearing some e-mail address or some other evidence of the poster's
identity. But clearly, it IS possible, since I see it all the time
(another exampole is when so-called threads are started, like when some-
one starts with "Hello from sunny California" and the next person adds
underneath "Hello from freezing Lapland" with a third adding "Hello
from rainy England' or some such line....etc.)
Is someone willing to explain how this is done? If so, may I be allowed
to ask for simple, step by step explanations, since I'm still very much a
rookie at all this. Please feel free to either post your answer (if you
feel that others might also benefit) or to e-mail to my id in the header.
Needless to say, I thank you very much in advance. And happy holidays...
MC.
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Jon Bell
>Hello:
>I have posted once before about the problem mentioned in the subject
>line. A couple of very kind persons responded by e-mail and I thank
>them. However, no doubt because of my own inexperience, I was unable to
>determine whether they had provided an answer to my question. So, I
>take the liberty of asking it again. (my apologies for posting anony-
>mously; being very new at all this, I find this the easiest way to
>post. I'm just now trying to familiarize myself with rn, nn, trn, vi,
>emacs and all that stuff...).
>
>Here then is my problem: often, one sees postings and underneath, some-
>body else has added another comment. It could be just one or two words,
>or it could be several sentences. Often, the reply is an answer to
>the original poster's query. At other times, it is a silly comment,
>or an immature insult or whatever. (that's not the issue here).
You mean, something like this?
>My question: how is that done?
Most newsreader programs have a command which posts a reply to an article,
and includes in your message the entire text of the article you're
replying to, usually set off with ">" at the beginning of each line.
This is called "quoting". You're supposed to edit away most of the quoted
article, leaving only the stuff you're directly responding to, and then
add your own comments (which don't have the ">").
Some e-mail programs can do this, too, but only in reply to another e-mail
message, of course, since you can't (usually) read news with an e-mail
program.
>The interesting thing about this is the fact that ONLY the appended
>line (or few words, or sentences) appears, without any indication of
>the identity or address of the person who added it.
The person who added the new text may not bother to put his/her name at
the end of the article, but it (along with the person's e-mail address)
_should_ appear in the "From:" line in the article's header. That is, the
header indicates the new author, not the author of the original (quoted)
message, even though most of the message may actually have been written by
the original author.
At the very beginning of the original (quoted) text, there should be a
line which tells you who wrote the original text. (Look at the beginning
of _this_ article for an example!)
--
Jon Bell <jtb...@presby.edu> Presbyterian College
Dept. of Physics and Computer Science Clinton, South Carolina USA
David DeLaney
>Hello:
[munch]
>I'm just now trying to familiarize myself with rn, nn, trn, vi,
>emacs and all that stuff...).
(mentioning which newsreader you *are* using would help greatly in getting your
question answered in detail)
>Here then is my problem: often, one sees postings and underneath, some-
>body else has added another comment. It could be just one or two words,
>or it could be several sentences.
[...]
>My question: how is that done?
[long question on "how are the identities of the previous posters removed?"
removed]
I think I posted on this once before (netlag... sigh.) The key is that when
following up to a post in this manner, one is given a copy of the post *in
an editor* to work with. The attributions usually seen at the top can be
edited out partially (as I have done) or completely (the latter is however
*not* good netiquette except in cascades). The "References:" line in the header
will still contain the message-ids of the previous messages, but this can
also be edited (and again, this is not good netiquette unless you're only taking
out the first one or two references in a group of several, which most news
programs will do automatically anyway).
I hope this helps some.
Dave
--
David DeLaney: dbd@(utkux.utcc | panacea.phys | enigma.phys).utk.edu - collect
them all! Disclaimer: AFAIK, *nobody* speaks for U.T.Knoxville (consistently);
Thinking about this disclaimer (or about high energy theoretical particle __
physics) may cause headaches. .sig virus: Vicki Robinson v2.24; Kibo #: -0 \/
Jay Ashworth
DD> --
DD> David DeLaney: dbd@(utkux.utcc | panacea.phys |
DD> enigma.phys).utk.edu - collect
Ghod, DeLaNeY... You figure that just because we like you well enough over in a.f.u, you can come over here, and, and...
_help_ people!
Furrfu!
Cheers,
-- jr "See, you can use pithy quotes here, too." a
--
Jay Ashworth -via fidonet gateway 1:3603/330
UUCP: ...!myrddin!mechanic!160!Jay.Ashworth
Note: The opinions stated in this post are only my own!
Peter Kappesser
>Here then is my problem: often, one sees postings and underneath, some-
>body else has added another comment.
<...>
>My question: how is that done?
Aha! I think I see where you're getting confused. When you see a message like
that, you're looking at a COPY of a previous message. Someone COPIED the
original message, added his pithy comments to the end, then posted the
whole thing again. The original message is still there on the system, somewhere
else. This means other people may be reading along, see the original message,
then a few minutes later see the same d*mn message again with a one-line
comment added to it, which more often than not has little more to say than
"I agree with you."
The reason this happens so often is that a lot of newsreading programs will
automatically quote the original message when you want to add a followup
comment. You're -supposed- to edit out everything in the original message
except the parts that directly refer to what you're commenting on.
Well, don't fret, I made the same mistakes when I was a newbie. Once you get
the hang of things, it goes a lot more smoothly.
-- Pete
--
"You are never given a wish
without also being given the power to make it true."
-- Richard Bach
pkap...@erc.cat.syr.edu