The problem isn't with a short previous message, or a snippet of it. Both of these are useful, particularly if someone has just come back from holiday and is responding to a thread from a couple of weeks ago. For me, there are two problems, one of length and the other of confusion. The first is when someone who gets the digest (a whole day's worth of messages) includes all those messages in a reply. Those digest messages themselves can each be lengthy if several people have also done the same. There is a limit to the size of messages that PBS is set up to receive, and ones that are too long get caught by our filters and are not distributed to members. The second is confusing. A few people include the whole message, but put their very short reply way down at the bottom. Since I expect the new information at the top of the message, I assume they haven't replied at all, and have hit "reply" too soon. Diane Whitehead On 24-Aug-10, at 11:56 AM, J.E. Shields wrote: > As usual, I find myself agreeing with Ellen. > > I often (not always) appreciate seeing the message being replied too > along with the new reply. > Personally, I find it helpful to be able to glance at the old > message and refresh my memory as to what the thread's about - but if > I don't need to, I don't, and no hard feelings towards the poor > idiot who sent it. :-) >> >> >> Ellen