It is really hard to follow a lot of posts these days from people who do not include at least part of the posts they are replying to.
My news reader does not make it easy for me to find those posts. When I've marked posts as "read", they do not show again -- without some effort. And the idea of news group postings is to be able to scan as quickly as possible.
It is normal, expected, and helpful for follow-up postings to include enough of the previous thread to give explanation of the topic. I am posting this only to help those who are not (yet) aware of what they are doing. Thanks for reading. --Phil