Newsgroup Message Not Sent Out of Pine

PROBLEM: PINE sometimes says it will not send a message because the Reply is shorter than the included text from the original e-mail message. What is the reason for this?

EXPLANATION: The reason is to cut down on an unnecessary amount of mail traffic. The idea behind it is to edit from the original message any material that is not directly pertinent to the response.

For instance:  

Someone sends  you a page length message ie. 24 lines which you reply to. If you quote the entire original text, but the only pertinent piece you are replying to is 2 lines long, that's 22 extra lines of text being sent for no good reason. Multiply that by the number of people using the e-mail system and you have a phenomenal amount of unnecessary mail traffic.

We are not sure but believe that the allowable ratio of quoted to unquoted text is fixed. At least, we have not seen anywhere that you can change it.

If you have comments, suggestions or concerns, please contact the CCNA Helpdesk

Last revised April 28 1998