Robbie Rhodes remarked in MMD 02.01.24:

>[ I haven't time to investigate all the truth and fiction which
>[ comes to MMD, nor to correspond about incomplete data; MMDigest
>[ simply disseminates the messages.  We all depend upon the senders
>[ to be thoughtful and thorough when they compose their messages.
>[ (They should have learned that in school.)

I would echo Robbie's sentiments.  Most subscribers have only seen the
finished, edited Digest that is delivered daily.  Few have seen the
"raw" material that arrives at the  rolls@foxtail.com address.

First, there is an infinite amount of spam that must waded through and
deleted.  The rolls e-mail address has been out there a long time and
every spammer in the world seems to have it.

Then there are those who, when responding to an MMD article, click on
the "Reply To" button thus sending the entire previous night's Digest
back to the rolls address along with their response.  This also happens
with vacation messages or incorrect email addresses (bounced messages).
These create unnecessary added text that must be eliminated.

Attachments also create added work.  As a reminder, attachments
(photos, MIDI files, etc.) can only be sent to <editor@foxtail.com>
The MMD address, <rolls@foxtail.com>, cannot deal with attachments.

Because of all the superfluous material received at <rolls>, it is not
unusual that only 20% of what is received is usable and actually
appears in the Digest.  Yes, there really is that much extra at times!

After all the extra text is eliminated, our editor still must edit and
format the articles and sometimes respond to them.  When the Digest is
finally ready, it has to be launched (sent out) and added to the
Archives.

Robbie and Jody have a lot of experience doing this but it still takes
time.  Kudos for all their hard work!

A picture of the hard-working Robbie Rhodes in his editing chair can be
seen at  http://mmd.foxtail.com/Exchange/robbie2.jpg

Thanks guys!

Joyce Brite
Player Piano and Mechanical Music Exchange
http://mmd.foxtail.com/Exchange/

 [ We recently received a two-line message accompanied by 38 kilobytes
 [ of unusable HTML.  Ugh!  Of the total email bytes received at
 [ <rolls@foxtail.com>, on the average only 25% appears in MMDigest.
 [ -- Robbie