On Thu, Aug 24, 2006 at 09:38:32PM +0900, thoran / thoran.com wrote:
} Dear Fellow Ruby Talkers,
} 
} Short of creating a new list, is there means by which we can 
} collectively reduce the noise/signal?
} 
} For instance, the Freecycle mailing list and for-sale newsgroups use a 
} prepending of a class of subject to the title or subject of a post.
[...]
} Also, I understand that things go OT and that some posts may be in two 
} or more categories (in which case just use / to delimit each I 
} suppose), but is anyone else prepared to give this or some other 
} prepending a go?
} 
} I'll volunteer to persist in using it for a very long time from now 
} and I've already started the ball as of the title of this post.

This idea has come up on nearly every significant technical mailing list
I've been on. It's a nice thought but it has two problems:

1) people new to the list
2) questions and requests for help

People new to the list will not know about these conventions. If you
put it in the welcome email, it still won't get read. New people are
joining every day.

Questions and requests for help make up the majority of the traffic on the
list. It makes little sense to categorize them, and the more subject line
that is dedicated to the actual question the easier it is for me to decide
which threads I'm interested in reading.

Anyway, it's a nice idea, but it never works and ultimately doesn't make
that much sense. Typically if topics are separate enough to warrant
separate tags, they are separate enough to warrent different mailing lists.
Exceptions include [ANN] and [ADV], both of which are already pretty well
socialized across most lists I'm on (and have been on).

} Sincerely,
} t
--Greg