Re: Confusing instructions for voting

[Richard Stallman <rms gnu org>]

    I guess the problem here is the use of "reply". I thought (and I still
    think, but I may be mistaken) that "replying" usually means answering an
    e-mail and quoting the e-mail which is being answered.

Replying simply means sending a message to the sender of the message
you are replying to.  It does not imply anything about the contents of
the message you send.  For instance, the r command in Rmail sets up a
message to the sender, with an empty body.

There are many different ways of citing all or part of the incoming
message in your reply.  Many of them put various text strings
at the start of each line, to indicate that the text was cited.
For instance, the method I use indents the cited text, but some people
insert "> " or "vincent> " or various other strings on each line.

It is not self-evident whether your program can recognize the votes
despite such methods of citation.  You should state explicitly
what methods work and what methods don't.  Or else give precise
directions!

    > I think it would be useful to make this explicit in the instructions.

    Could you give us an example of making this explicit ? I can't find a
    better way to formulate this.

How about this:

   Copy the entire body of this message into your reply, without
   indenting the lines or adding any text at the front of them, then
   delete the candidates you don't want to vote for.  (It does not
   matter whether you copy the headers of this message or not.)

That is explicit.  Is it correct?


   candidates you do