Apologizing over long posts

["James Purchase" <jpurch@interlog.com>]

I've noticed that a few of you feel the need to apologize for what you
perceive as a "long post". As you can probably tell by now, I never feel
guilty about being long winded - my posts tend to go on (and on...).

E-mail communication is difficult at best and overly brief e-mails can lead
to confusion and misunderstanding. If you are trying to keep your messages
brief to spare the reader's time you are doing both a disservice. Quite
often here, someone mentions something which they _assume_ others are going
to understand and be able to follow. Without the background information or
any elaboration, this is not always the case. A _lot_ of our problems here
have been caused by people _assuming_ that others would know what they meant
in a brief e-mail.

Please stop being sorry for being detailed in your messages. There is not
enough daily traffic and message volume to worry about having to keep things
so to the point that you omit pertinent details. This is especially true
when discussing something which others may not have the benefit of your
experience with.

James Purchase
Toronto

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