Jeopardy quoting in an
e-mail reply is a way of showing all the previous dialog, by placing it
below the new message.
For example (identities and technicalities changed to protect the innocent):
From: Mustrum Ridcully
To: Ponder Stibbons
cc:
Subject: Re: Static magic script
It will need octarine containment changes - so not totally
standalone
Mustrum
From: Ponder Stibbons
To: Senior Wrangler
cc: Mustrum Ridcully, Victor Tugelbend
Subject: Re: Static magic script
This is a standalone utility that does not have any impact
on anything else on Hex. However it should be incorporated
in a subsequent release.
We are proposing (Mustrum, correct me if I am wrong) to
release this as its own patch.
Ponder.
From: Senior Wrangler
To: Ponder Stibbons
cc: Victor Tugelbend, Mustrum Ridcully
Subject: Re: Static magic script
Baselined. Victor you will need to rebase before you can
see the files. Is this going to be part of Release 7.1 ?
Regards,
S.Wrangler.
From: Ponder Stibbons
To: Victor Tugelbend
cc: Mustrum Ridcully, Senior Wrangler
Subject: Static magic script
Victor,
My static magic generator script is now in Clearcase.
It is in static/magic/bin, which is a directory which is
already part of the path.
Prerequisite environment variables:
HEX_LOGIN
HEX_PASSWD
MAGIC_SID
You will need execute permission on the script.
static_magic.pl hex.tablename
At the option: prompt, you can type h for help.
Please can you give this a thorough test.
Thanks,
Ponder.
Many e-mail clients, such as
Outlook,
Outlook Express and
Lotus Notes have this feature turned on by default for replies. Some settings on clients enable the existing reply to be highlighted with > or a solid vertical bar, marking each line. These highlights nest, causing replies to replies to be in-set in their left margin.
The term originates from the US television game show called Jeopardy!1 in which answers are presented to the contesants, and they have to find the right question. An e-mail message with a jeopardy quoted reply chain will appear back to front to somebody unfamiliar with e-mail technology.
Jeopardy quoting is often hated by people running mailing lists and discussion forums, as the original text of a message will appear many times as it is blindly pasted into all the replies to it at all the levels. It also makes searching the list or forum that much harder, as each jeopardy reply pollutes the weightings on the search index.
The alternatives are just to present a reply with no history, or to intersperse the highlighted response with your update, such as:
> Please close down the application server on SYS1, and
> let the DBAs know when you have done so.
done.
> Please also keep track of any anomolies bringing it back
> up again.
Server came up completely clean.
Source: http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/http/quote.html
1Many parts of the globe have not seen or heard of the show Jeopardy!, but the term Jeopardy Quoting has become international.