On Fri, Apr 10, 2020 at 4:19 PM Emily Addison <emilyladdi...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Maybe the solution is to delete the previous content then rather than start a > new thread.
That is much better, yes. > Or maybe there are other solutions to address the interests of those with > gmail threads vs digest versions? The problem is that there are two technical cultures interacting here: a) Old-style truncation culture. Trim responses to just the part you intend to reply to. This is compatible with simple digests, and with email clients that don't know how to hide quoted sections. This is what old mail clients used to push people towards: mutt, pine, etc. b) New-style no-truncation culture. Just type your reply, all earlier stuff will be included as quotes. This is painful in simple digests unless you have an email client that knows how to hide quoted sections in digests. This is what all nearly all current email clients push people towards: gmail, outlook, apple mail, etc. My post here is an example of (a), Alex's is an example of (b). I used to be a strong adherent of (a), but have realized that this isn't a battle I'm going to win, and constantly fighting tools designed for (b) is too hard. I gave up on this in ~2013 (https://www.jefftk.com/p/abandoning-bottom-posting) and always use (b) now, unless I'm in a situation like this one. I see a few ways forward: 1. Decide to enforce (a). Configure the email list software to reject any messages containing "To unsubscribe send an email to organizers-le...@lists.sharedweight.net" because "does this message contain the list footer" is a strong heuristic for "has this message not been trimmed". 2. Decide to allow (b). Digests won't be very readable by default. People who currently use digest mode switch to non-digest mode and configure their email clients to group messages from this list, or switch to email clients that can identify and collapse quoted sections. 3. Decide to allow (b) and make the digester smarter. Make the digest notice top posting and remove the quoted messages from the digest. This is pretty simple technically, but I'm not sure if anyone wants to work on the digester to fix it? It's open source. 4. Do nothing. People in (b) will keep not truncating and digests will often be unreadable. This is basically the same as (2). We should also keep in mind that (a) and (b) mostly represent different age groups, and that people who are unhappy are likely to leave and talk elsewhere. For example, I mostly use FB instead of mailing lists at this point, and if we switched to (1) I think many people in my cohort (not me, since I used to be an (a) person) would just not post. Jeff _______________________________________________ Organizers mailing list -- organizers@lists.sharedweight.net To unsubscribe send an email to organizers-le...@lists.sharedweight.net
