In order to have the Google Groups system work, the following guidelines are
strongly suggested:
1. When starting a new thread, please do *not* "reply" to an existing post
in another thread.
2. When continuing a thread, please *do* "reply" to an existing post,
normally the most - probably exclusively - relevant post. (Note that this
has the desirable effect that the subject remains unchanged and sorting by
subject works *much* better.)
2a. In the latter case, if the subject has "migrated" sufficiently, please
use the 'brackets and "was"' convention.
Using these guidelines/conventions, Google Groups works much better for
IBM-MAIN - or for any supported list.
Why don't I use the IBM-MAIN archives? The "Table of Contents" feature seems
to rely purely on the subject and so works better - but the archives tend to
be slower than Google Groups. Nevertheless the IBM-MAIN archives are still
defeated by a change of subject - however subtle and possibly invisible to
mere humans.
I take the "digest" option from Google Groups which I use in order to try to
spot folk who do not use e-mails. I was surprised to note that a topic in
which I was taking an interest had far many more posts than I thought I had
seen as e-mails. Wouldn't you know it? - someone had started a new thread by
using "reply" rather than starting from scratch. And, oddly enough, it was a
case of logically a "reply" which actually had, in fact, been started from
scratch and so - dare I say it? - the thread was lost!
Since planning this post I have seen an instance fly by - a second time from
the same author - of failure to follow these suggestions causing confusion.
Of course, also resuming a thread after 2 months is going to strain the
memory if not the archiving systems - assuming the above guidelines are
followed - which they appeared not to have been!
Chris Mason
P.S. A sub-guideline - which I can call 1a - which should be obvious but is
just an irritation:
1a. When starting a new thread, do *not* put "Re: " in front of the
subject - please.
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