Hi Doug, Dave, and others,
Replying with a post that switches your discussion to a different
subject from the original thread or using an inappropriate subject
header can also make it more difficult to effectively use the archives
for this list. I use the reply to function so that I can excerpt the
relevant parts of a question in my reply, and this means that in cases
where the question appears in a thread where the subject has been
changed I will change the subject line. However, I am aware that
people who are making use of threaded mail readers to speed through
high volumes of mail (such as occurs on this list) often won't see
these replies because they will tailor their reading to the original
subject line. The list archives also use threads rather than subjects.
To add to Doug's request, please also choose appropriate subject lines
and also consider whether someone who reads your post has sufficient
information to understand the context of the discussion if they have
not been continuously reading the list and all its posts, or all the
previous posts in the thread. The other extreme of the problem that
Doug describes are the instances where someone who raises an issue
chooses subject lines like "What is going on here?" and then proceeds
to continue the discussion in a succession of new posts which may or
may not even have helpful subject lines -- for example, if they follow
up with a new post titled "My problem fixed". And in cases of single
line replies to complex (multi-question) posts, make sure you give
enough information so people know what you are replying to, or excerpt
the relevant text. (Again, I know that people reading and replying
from mobile readers may not be able to excerpt or edit, but they can
add a few extra words to their replies to make the context clear.)
I don't know a way around the problem, but I'm really glad that
searches in the Mailing List Archives (the secondary archives for this
list) support flexible search options that include the whole message,
and also give you access keys that allow you to quickly move through
the posts by subject thread (control-n for next, control-p for
previous) or chronologically by date (control-f for forward, control-b
for back), and switch between these modes -- control-c for list by
contents (threads) and control-i for list indexed by date/time. This
means that when you do a search query you're given a few lines of
context as with Google searches as well as the subject line and poster
in the header link. Then when you read through the link you can pick
up the subsequent discussion by following the next post in the thread
with control-n (in cases where the subject has changed), or backtrack
with control-p to read the previous posts for context. This works
even when the posts are at really early times in the archives and is
extremely helpful in getting content out of these discussions despite
problematic subject lines. I use this to read the list when I get
backlogged in my mail or if I'm traveling and don't have access to my
own computer. Also, the access keys at the Mailing List Archives work
for other browsers and other platforms -- you may need to check what
combination to use for your browser, but it's most likely the ALT key
if you're in Windows and Internet Explorer and might be either key for
other browsers or linux. For more information on using the Mailing
List Archives to read and search, see the links to these recent posts
on the thread subject: Searching mail archives?
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg46243.html
(Anne Robertson's post on tips for reading the list at the archives
site)
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg46245.html
(my follow-up post on using the access keys for search syntax)
I'll just add that if I were rewriting the first set of tips today,
I'd probably add that using the Safari commands to mark a page for
Snapback (Command-Option-K) and Snap back to the marked page (Command-
Option-P) can help you keep things straight if you shift between
threaded and chronological mode to read threads, or to help you keep
track of when reading up or down a thread takes you outside that
thread. Use the Snapback to return to whichever page you've marked
when you started reading the thread.
The Mailing List Archives page for this list is at:
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
Thankfully, the access key combinations are also working in the WebKit
nightly builds as well as Safari.
HTH
Cheers,
Esther
On Jan 7, 2009, at 6:09 AM, David Poehlman wrote:
no, this was good I just didn't read all of the original message
before replying and should have done so.
On Jan 7, 2009, at 10:59 AM, Doug Lee wrote:
Unfortunately not all mailers will thread by subject, though this
would be the most obvious solution! (My mail program is called Mutt,
and though it looks like it's supposed to allow that, I've never seen
it work.)
I forgot to mention that deleting the In-Reply-To header manually *is*
sufficient to avoid this problem, but that is not made easy by most
mail programs either.
Anyway, sorry for the bandwidth. :)
On Wed, Jan 07, 2009 at 10:51:16AM -0500, David Poehlman wrote:
I don't make this assumption and I don't use threading but I do take
your point. It amounts to the same thing though. I'll probably
alter
my reply behavior as a result of this info sometimes anyway but
consider
that it is often more difficult than it may at first seem to do
what you
suggest. you have to either know or have the address of the list
you are
sending to to effect a new message based on your instructions.
Believe
it or not, this is not the case often enough that folk just hit reply
instead of starting a new "thread. Can't you just thread by subject?
<snipped>
On Jan 7, 2009, at 10:09 AM, Doug Lee wrote:
I see this happen on a lot of mailing lists, but I just spotted a
13-message thread on this list in which several totally different
subjects were discussed.
Some mail readers "can thread" mail such that all messages that are
replies to each other appear as a single entry in the list of
messages. I do this to speed mail handling, since I get hundreds of
emails a day. I will see the subject line of the first message and
the number of messages that follow from it. If I delete, I will
delete the entire thread, with the assumption that it is all about
the
shown subject.
If you use the Reply function of your mailer to start a new topic,
chances are I and several other people will never even know about
your
message because it will show up as just another part of the thread
you
actually hit Reply on. Example: If you want to ask how to
right-click with VoiceOver, but for convenience, you do it by
replying
to a message entitled "How well does Fusion work?" I'll just
notice a
multi-message thread called "How well does Fusion work?" If I don't
want to read about Fusion, I'll delete that thread never knowing you
tossed a completely different subject into it.
Note that changing the subject line is not enough. Mail programs
put
an "In-Reply-To" header into a message when you use Reply, and
that's
how messages are threaded in most mailers that do threading.
So in summary, don't use Reply if you're starting a new topic, or
some
of us won't even see your message. I know Reply is convenient, but
its use when you're not really replying might cause inconvenient
side
effects.
