Stefan:
>In fact this silly behavior makes archive cleaning impossible, since if
>you, Peter, are shortening parts of the cited message, you might throw
>away parts, the replying person thought to be important to be copied.
>Since he/she copied   a l l   one will never know.

This is a definite possibility though I do in most cases make an effort to
read the whole message - quotes and all - and probably not much is lost
except for my time.

>I have some problem here with the subject lines. My mail program
>doesn't allow me long subject lines. It limits them to 60 characters.
>So I might be in trouble, if there is a subject, like
>"Finding out about human health by history studies"
>and I want to continue with "Paleolithic studies in comparison (was:
>Finding out about human health by history studies)"

I think this is the case for many of us, and I always make an effort not to
make them too long. The one above I would shorten to: Paleolithic studies
(was: Finding out about human health) = 57 characters.

>This obviously would be too long and cut by my mail program.
>I will help myself with ... then:
>"Paleolithic studies in comparison (was: Finding out about..."
>Accepted?

There are many ways to skin a cat. Looks good to me. :-)

>Should we make a guideline, that forbids replying to such a subject
>line with "Re: Paleolithic studies in comparison (was: Finding out about..."
>and instead one would have to use: "Re: Paleolithic studies in comparison"
>thereby omitting the "was..." part? (It suffices for thread following
>when the "was... " appears once).

I used to do this myself but now I have stopped because

"Re: Paleolithic studies in comparison (was: Finding out about..."
 and
"Re: Paleolithic studies in comparison"

would be grouped as two different threads in the archives. But I agree that
the part "(was: Finding out about...)" is redundant after the first time.
However, I am not really happy with either option and would wish that there
was a third. Ideas anyone?

Thanks for the valuable feedback!

Best, Peter
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