st: Please don't trim previous postings excessively

["Nick Cox" <n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk>]

Here -- and quite often elsewhere -- the trimming of previous emails
makes it difficult for readers to understand quite what is being
discussed without rummaging in the archives. 

The simple but fundamental principle that the list's postings are a
collective, meaning shared, resource implies that listers should please 

* trim previous postings of unimportant detail 

* but not trim so much that the message is difficult to evaluate. 

Quite how much to trim remains a little difficult to optimise, but the
existence of an optimum between extremes should not be surprising to
statistically-minded researchers. 

Nick 
n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk 

A member wrote 

Really sorry about that. 

I wll try your suggestion . 


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