That's bull and you know it. No one imposes anything on anyone on this list and you know that too. All I'd really like to see is D: for digital and an F: for film. I thought I'd made that clear. But since there is so much digital stuff going on now I've just unsubscribed. I'll come back any time I want to ask a question or contribute something. Cheers to you too, AH.
Don _______________ Dr E D F Williams http://personal.inet.fi/cool/don.williams Author's Web Site and Photo Gallery See New Pages 'The Cement Company from HELL!' Updated: August 15, 2003 "Oh my God! They've killed Teddy!" ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bob W" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, January 26, 2004 2:43 PM Subject: Re: OT: Labelling messages by topic D: S: F: P: OT: and so on (2) > Hi, > > the correct way to deal with this sort of thing is for people to use > the subject line properly, and to change it as and when necessary. > That is the real problem, although personally I don't think it is a > particularly bad problem. If I miss something interesting in one of > the threads I delete, well tough. > > Codes are just some sort of shorthand for the subject. If people don't > change the subject, they won't change the codes. That's just a plain > fact which spoils your system from the word go. > > In addition to that, many messages - not threads, but individual > messages - include several subjects. You may be interested in some of > these but not in others. So perhaps you need a set of codes to > indicate which subjects the message includes. > > 3rd, you would need to get agreement on a large number of codes. There > are a lot of people on the list who don't share all of your interests or > dislikes. While each person's personal list might be small, the > combined list would probably become large. This would certainly lead > to multi-letter codes, or - horror! - mixtures of letters and digits > (p1=printing, p2=processing,...). > > This would lead to quite a large number of multi-letter codes typed as > sets into the subject line. Gee. That's words and phrases. Only now they > don't belong to the language common to everybody on the list, but are > arbitrary combinations which people are expected to remember. Coding > schemes are great for computers, bad for people. > > Easy identification of the subject, and useful filtering comes from > writing and maintaining useful subject lines, not inventing new > languages and trying to impose them on other people. > > It may well be that people don't read some things they might otherwise > have read. That's their choice. On the other hand, if people are to be > criticised for not sticking to your coding system then people won't write > things they might otherwise have written, and nobody gains from their > wisdom. > > I suggest your efforts would be better spent trying to get us to > change the subject line when appropriate. > > -- > Cheers, > Bob > > > Monday, January 26, 2004, 11:27:01 AM, you wrote: > > > Labelling the subject in some simple way would not only help people like me > > to eliminate unwanted posts -- but an F: for film would help select the > > desirable ones as well. If the task becomes too laborious, as it often does, > > I may sacrifice all and lose valuable exchanges as a result. Is that what > > you want? Don't you care if your messages are read or not? Many members, > > Boris for instance, get a lot from PDML and he is a lively contributor -- I > > don't know where he finds the time. There are others like him. Easy > > identification of the subject might help them as well. > > > I suggested a few labels. They are not arbitrary. 'D:' for digital is okay. > > 'F:' for film would also be good. It would be very easy to type the two > > characters needed to identify a subject. 'Dig:' would also be okay, but the > > extra characters might be too much strain. 'Digital' would involve huge > > effort. But it would be folly to come up with a list of 20 or more different > > ids. No one would bother, or remember them. But the separation of digital > > from film would be very useful. I know that P: for processing may not be so > > good because there is printing to consider. > > > I don't need to be relieved of editing. As I said, if it's too much trouble > > I just delete the lot. And maybe someone who was looking for information I > > might have been able to provide loses my input. There are a few little > > things I know about that can be useful to others sometimes. But it's usually > > the other way around. I get a lot of invaluable information from PDML. Most > > recently I found out about a fine scanner. > > > It didn't take me long to realise that there is always someone in the group > > who knows the answer, or can help find it. And so, anything that makes it > > easier for others to read your contributions is helpful. > >
