Kay wrote

An increasing number of people are posting replies to threads without
any indication of what it is that they're replying to, other than the
heading which may or may not be informative.

Like many (most?) people, I'm reading this newsgroup using software that
takes me straight from one new post to the next. There's an awful lot of
posts in this newsgroup, and when someone simply follows up a previous
post with no indication of what it's about, it's a hassle to have to
start backtracking to find the post being responded to, or, worse still,
try and find a post in a separate thread with the same name.

Please could people quote enough of the post they're replying to so that
readers know what it is they're talking about? It would make reading
posts a lot easier, and it would also mean that there's a better chance
of getting a reply.


VX writes
I notice that your newsreader is Turnpike. When I last used Turnpike, which
was in the first year of it becoming available (gasp- getting on for ten
years ago!), even then it used a clever graphical interface that displayed
the threading of newsgroup posts. I found it to be an excellent newsreader
and I find it hard to believe that it has regressed iand become more
primitive since then. Your ISP's tech helpline should be able to tell you how
to change the settings if you don't know.

I don't think its a technical matter. I too use a Turnpike version from
probably that vintage, and its not the appearance of the posts, but the
content of them. Often newbies do not understand the difference between
replying to an existing thread and starting a new one, and often people
reply as if they are addressing a single person rather than all the
group (including lurkers). Similarly some folk have just started a reply
as if they are sending a text message on a phone without any context.
Some have even complained that some of the replies did not meet their
own specific criteria, without realising that once a topic is up and
running, it may take all sorts of twists and turns and cover all sorts
of related matters which might be of great interest to others, including
lurkers.

Eventually we should have everyone copying the normal conventions here,
but I think we've just attracted a lot of new posters recently. A lot of
learner-drivers not showing L plates?
--
David