On Thu, 11 Jan 2001 tuinstra / clarkson.edu wrote:

> I can't compare the "before DDA" days to now, as I'm one of those
> who came to Ruby because of that article.  But I am finding that
> sifting through even just the message headers is time-consuming.
> Is it possible, please, to remove the "[ruby-talk:XXXX]" string
> from the subject header, so that list subscribers can organize 
> email by thread?  Not everyone has whiz-bang email clients, or 
> the time to research/hack the guts of the one they use, or learn 
> a new one.  
> 
> Even just putting the "[...]" at the end of the subject line, 
> instead of at the beginning, would help.  Sorting by subject
> would then gather the threads.
> 
> Please?
> 
>   --Dwight Tuinstra
>     tuinstra / clarkson.edu
> 

I have to disagree here.  That little "[ruby-talk:XXXX]" thing has already
helped me look up a previous thread of discussion, and I've used it to
guide my non-subscribing friends through the archives.  I shudder to think
what would happen if I had to refer them to the third reply in the thread
from January 2001 that starts with the message line "bug??"

Having the mailing list identified in brackets at the beginning of each
message is also used on virtually every mailing list I subscribe 
to.  That's including a very non-technical Tom Waits-related list.

Hmm... what about appending the message id number to the end of the
message body when the post is processed by the mailing list program?  I
don't know how practical that would be to apply, but it might make it
easier for them non-whiz-bang email clients to organize a thread, since
the brackets would just contain '[ruby-talk]'.  But you'd still be able to
refer to a message by its id and find it in the mailing list that way.

Would that be practical, or even possible?  Anyways, it's just a thought.

Brian Wisti
brian / coolnamehere.com