Signal to Noise

Whenever I get one of these communiques through eBay I’m always astonished at the amount of extra verbiage. This one takes the cake, though. Only about 1% of the message body is the actual message – the words “it’s taken care of.” Presented below in full, slightly reformatted and munged.

From: 	  member@ebay.com
Subject: 	Re: Question for item #__ - __ __ __
Date: 	September 17, 2005 4:03:09 PM EDT (CA)
To: 	  __@e-scribe.com
Reply-To: 	  __@comcast.net

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================================================================
Response to Question about Item -- Respond Now
================================================================

Response from __
Item: __ __  (__)
This message was sent while the listing was active.
__ is the seller.
---------------------------------------
it's taken care of

================================================================
Respond to this question in My Messages: 
http://contact.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?M2MContact&item=__&
requested=__&qid=1251585165&redirect=0
================================================================

Item Details
---------------------------------------
Item name:                             __ __ 
Item number:                           __
End date:                              Sep-19-05 15:34:28 PDT

View the item description here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=__&sspagename
=ADME:L:RTQ:US:1

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