On Sat, 02 Jul 2005 18:15:12 +0200, David McNab <
david@...>
wrote:
>
> I'd like to suggest a simple method I'm sure many will appreciate:
> 1. open a new message compose window, not a reply window
> 2. ...
> Sounds complicated, but it's only 5-10 seconds extra work, and it will
> mitigate the entropy on this list and make it more useful for all.
>
That's immensly complicated.
Why not just click reply and change the subject?
Also, some mail clients (like opera M2) have a clever function, when you
highlight some text in a mail and then click reply this text alone is
taken into the reply, and the rest chopped away.
I will try to change the subject line more often.
What i want to add to your request is please don't change the subject to
something unrelated with no connection to what you are replying to. If you
are quoting relevant passages it is ok to totally change the subject but
in many cases it is much better to include a "(was: the old topic".
The subjects get longer, but 99.9% of mail software cuts the last part if
anything so no harm done if it can't be fully displayed in small windows.
Also, as much as i love preserving storage space, don't cut _all_ the old
post away, leave relevant passages or even only keywords, and ideally
leave the line that says in reply to whom it is.
Also, i want to mention the lists are primarily for discussion, and
archives is only a nice secondary function. So while a certain amount of
"make it suitable for the archives" is certainly sensible it shouldn't
impede discussion too much.
ST