Maggie, [M] wrote:
You know Allie, I thought about this subject line before naming it
such and since the problem lies with the *unread* folder, that's what
I named it in the subject line. Paul and Thomas didn't seem to have
any problem with the subject line as they gave very plausible
solutions to my problem. Others on the list seem to have as much
intelligence as those two, therefore, I do not accept your trout!
Ok. I woke this morning to see this and had mixed feelings about it. I
intended at first not to respond, but as usual, I think the best
response comes after some thought before typing and I think I'm
finished thinking about it. The thinking time allowed me to stop
reflecting too much on how *I* felt after reading the innuendo
attacking my intelligence after sending a moderatorial note, and
instead, try to see things from your point of view.
As usual, my intentions as moderator are good as always. I really
tread lightly, but firmly when doing this sort of thing. It's really
been challenging trying to make the list run in a way that's
comfortable for the membership and yet not get in the way of the
members too much. It's with this spirit that I hope my interjections
are being read, though I didn't get that impression from your response
to this last one. :)
I guess my interjection on the quality of your message subject comes
as a surprise, especially since I've never really done so before on
this list. I guess it's bad form on my part to start moderating
message subjects on the list without officially warning members that
I'll be doing so. For that I apologize.
Anyway, inadequacy of message subjects was the discussion point on
TBBETA quite recently. I don't know if you're subscribed there.
Adequate subject headers are a vital part to making it comfortable for
our members to more easily see what messages are about and to better
do searches. It also helps the busy members, especially the
developers, to quickly see what threads they'll read first or at all,
before moving on. I agreed with this and realized that we've never
really moderated this important aspect of posting, though we moderate
the use of cut marks. :) I decided we really aught to moderate
inadequate subjects when seen. This has been well received on TBBETA.
When we moderate top posting, this doesn't mean that we're assuming
the poster didn't think about their posting format. In fact, top
posting is often done with a lot of thought behind it. The same
applies to your message subject. We *never* think that those who
infringe list rules do so because they're not intelligent enough to
know better. In fact, like top posting, we do know that there's a lot
of deliberate, and in most instances, innocent and reasoned thought
behind the infringements. The thing is that when we explain why a list
rule exists, most do see the reason behind our rules even though they
may not have thought about it that way before.
Additionally, many active members, including myself, never really
looked at message subjects since we read most, if not all, threads. We
moderate top posting and excessive quoting but very few actually
publicly complain about the posts that infringe rules when seen. So
your comment that others don't seem to have a problem with it doesn't
really indicate that your subject was seen as inadequate or not.
Finally, formulating subjects does is not a black and white thing. It
requires judgement and experience. Formulating a message subject for
private correspondence is different from doing so for a busy list.
From discussion, it would seem that those who rely on good message
subjects wish for a format like:
what area in TB! is the query about what about that area
You could either do it in that format, for example:
BayesIt: Why is my spam getting through despite training?
or
BayesIt: Where do I get the latest build
or
Virtual Folders: Problem with updating message list.
Or you could do it like
Spam still getting through despite training BayesIt
or
Where do I get the latest BayesIt build
or
Problems updating Virtual Folder message lists.
I'm sure we can all see that those subjects are more meaningful than
just:
Bayesit
or
Virtual Folders
or
A Question
This is all that I'm moderating.
--
-=[ Allie Martin ]=-
List Moderator and fellow end-user
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