On Sat, 2004-11-06 at 19:27, Robert Snyder wrote:
> Paul,
> i know i told you I would be polite and I would watch my lanuage when
> posting. But after trying to address this Mr. Smith about his
> contsant changing of the topic field scrwing up email threads features
> in Gmail, hotmail, yahoo, ... cut ...
> I did try contacting mr smith off the list politely asking him to
> either please stop it and be curdious to other members of this list or
> to simply cut back on the number of times he does it.
> He responded like an asshole being rude so this is why this is being
> put up here you might think this should be ins slug pol but it has to
> do with this list and not slug politics.
This is not the first time it has come up in a LUG, and it won't be the
last. I have discussed this _exact_subject_ with _all_ officers at LEAP
over the last 3 years. Based on their recommendations, this is how I
post.
Here are my two off-list responses in their _entirety_. I will let
others judge me as they see fit. I tried to be polite. Sorry if I was
viewed as an "asshole," but I _have_ entertained extensive comments on
this matter prior.
*** Off-list Response #1 ***
-----Forwarded Message-----
From: Bryan J. Smith <b.j.smith@ieee.org>
To: Robert Snyder <robertsnyder@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: please stop cluttering my inbox -- will not do, my apologies
Date: Sat, 06 Nov 2004 11:23:37 -0500
On Fri, 2004-11-05 at 15:33, Robert Snyder wrote:
> I dont mea to be rude. But some people use web mail for the slug list
> and it does not support message threading
That's a problem with the mail reader then.
> so when you keep changing the topicI get 20 new threads from you all
> about the same damn orginal thread.
It should still be ordered correctly if you sort based on subject.
I _only_ modify the _end_ of the subject, so this will still occur.
This is based on the O'Reilly Discussion Guidelines.
It helps search engines drastically.
> I could see what you do in a bigger group to organize the messages so
> people can quick go to the right one. But your causing more of a
> hassle for people like me who use Gmail and or other web based email
> services than not.
Then complain to Google Mail. Their implementation seems to lack a
_lot_ of common logic and features, that's not my fault (I have a GMail
account myself, and one of the reasons I don't use it ;-).
> Thanks for your consideration in this matter
You're not the first one to bring this up and you won't be the last.
In a nutshell, I get 10x as many thanks for changing the _end_ of the
subject than people who complain about it.
About 2-3x are from people on the list, the other 6-7x are the ones who
find my posts in Google searches.
My apologies, but I will not stop using the O'Reilly Discussion
Guidelines.
*** Off-list Response #2 ***
-----Forwarded Message-----
From: Bryan J. Smith <b.j.smith@ieee.org>
To: Robert Snyder <robertsnyder@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: please stop cluttering my inbox -- FYI, I _am_ practicing the Golden Rule
Date: Sat, 06 Nov 2004 11:29:16 -0500
On Sat, 2004-11-06 at 11:23, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> You're not the first one to bring this up and you won't be the last.
> In a nutshell, I get 10x as many thanks for changing the _end_ of the
> subject than people who complain about it.
> About 2-3x are from people on the list, the other 6-7x are the ones who
> find my posts in Google searches.
Understand that I _am_ practicing the Golden Rule on this.
I can't make everyone happy, but only a majority. I have to side with
the majority on this. I don't know how many times I've seen people take
_conflicting_ stances on this.
I especially love the "bottom post" v. "top post" debates. Us older
Internet gurus (I've been maintaining DNS/mail servers on the Internet
since 1989, former InterNIC handle BJS12 -- yes, _12_). Same deal with
e-mail/UseNet discussions, O'Reilly posed a set of guidelines over a
decade ago, and that's why you find people like myself (among others)
doing this.
Now in the "old days," we used to modify the _whole_ subject. But
because there are so many broken mail readers or because newer people
don't like to thread, it messes up sorting on subject. So now us "old
geeks" just append the subject, leaving the original intact. This seems
to please most people -- and, again, I get thanked for it regularly.
It would be far less work for me to not append the subject. But so many
people thank me for it daily when they find my posts in a Google
archive, or several times monthly when people on the digests go through
the traffic and find the exact answer thanx to my subject appending.
I sincerely suggest you tell Google to add the basic features which many
other web mail clients have. Also note that's why they call it a
"beta," because it doesn't feature everything they need to do yet.
;-ppp
-- Bryan J. Smith b.j.smith@ieee.org ------------------------------------------------------------------ "Communities don't have rights. Only individuals in the community have rights. ... That idea of community rights is firmly rooted in the 'Communist Manifesto.'" -- Michael Badnarik----------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
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