New subject: A New York Town where Pinball is illegal

10 Aug 2010

-------------------Original Message:
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2010 16:48:10 -0700 (PDT)
From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com>
Subject: Re: GET LAMP is here

On Mon, 9 Aug 2010, Tony Duell wrote:
...
  I don't see why a comment of the form
'It's a documentary abotu the
 heistory of text adventures, for more information see <URL>' is
 impossible. 
I agree.  I often need to read several messages further on in a thread to
figure out what is being talked about.

"XYZZY" or "PLUGH" would be more recognizable.  But, like many puzzles
in
Colossal Cave, it's obvious AFTER you know it, but not before.

...
  follow such a URL involves almost as much work as you
getting to see one
 of my workshop notebooks. And I want to know if that effort is worthwhile. 
If we could scan the entire existing collection, then the effort probably
would be worthwhile.

I'm on dial-up right now.  A URL with no explanation just seems rather
inconsiderate.

Oh, well.  But, it's not just here.  The college adminiatrators tend to
send a 4 line paragraph as a MICROS~1 WEIRD attachment with no explanation
other than "FYI" or "read the attachment". Meanwhile, the "Help
Desk"
sends out several announcements per week saying, "Please stop opening
attachments that come with email, and please stop replying to messages
that ask what your password is!"

--
Grumpy Ol' Fred     cisin at xenosoft.com

-----------------------Reply:
I'm with Tony and Fred on this one: a hint of what a URL is about would be
nice and show a little consideration.

I'm on dial-up as well, often incurring per-minute long distance charges,
and read my email off-line; if there's no clue what a link is about then I
just treat it as spam no matter where it's from instead of investing time 
and money looking at something that probably won't interest me (especially 
when some sites take 3 or 4 minutes at 56K just to open the page).

mike