Stefan Trethan wrote:
> That's immensly complicated.
> Why not just click reply and change the subject?
Because, as I said, the tangent (with most email clients incl
Moz/T'Bird) gets buried in the thread tree under a completely unrelated
subject heading.
BTW, it took me about 10 secs incl a few simple keystrokes to perform
the simple procedure I described in the original post, in this message,
which should appear at the root of its own thread tree. I've done this
as an example.
> I will try to change the subject line more often.
That'd be a good start.
> 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".
Agreed 100%
> 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.
Yes.
> 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.
'Tis good to have some context, yes.
> Also, i want to mention the lists are primarily for discussion, and
> archives is only a nice secondary function.
But such a vastly useful function. I've lost count of the times Google
has pointed me to a mailing list I'd not heard of, after which I've
browsed the list archives online and found what I've needed (depending
on list entropy) sooner or later.
> So while a certain amount of "make it suitable for the archives" is
> certainly sensible it shouldn't impede discussion too much.
I don't think the suggested procedure would impede things. All decent
mail clients have hotkeys to do all the required steps, and Alt-Tab to
switch between windows fills the gap. The procedure is effortless habit
for me.
--
Cheers
David