Nick, There is no need to reinvent the wheel, there are already many existing systems which "turn email into readable text". These systems have been around as long as the Internet exists. The come in the form of mailing lists, newsgroups, forums, and or as a hybrid between email and web forum.
The Usenet ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet ) allowed people to discuss topics in "newsgroups". Posts were submitted to the newsgroups by email, organized in readable threads available on the web, and it was possible to follow the discussions in news readers. Yahoo Groups, Google Groups are a hybrid of email and web discussion group as well. They offer mailing list functionality, i.e. people can discuss issues on a mailing list via email, and support web access to the discussions as well. All of these systems and applications turn email discussions into readable text. Jochen Am 19.01.2013 18:35, schrieb Nicholas Thompson:
EVERYBODY, This material is way too good to be packed down into the midden of old email. SO! Once again, I am going to ask this group a question I have asked before: how can we develop conventions (or write a software program) that will turn email correspondence into readable text. The three main problems are (1) headers (2) redundancy and (3) larding (which Steve Does here). Larding is the practice of distributing ones response in the text. I suspect some simple conventions and a word macro would do the trick, but believe me, if you try to rescue one of these interchanges, it is VERY hard work. Nick
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