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Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1999 12:23:38 -0500
To: lancair.list@olsusa.com
From: Marvin Kaye <marvkaye@olsusa.com>
Subject: The ever-changing 'Subject' field
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          <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<--->>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
          <<  Lancair Builders' Mail List  >>
          <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<--->>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>
I thought this might be a good time to revisit a well-worn topic, that
being the importance of the 'Subject' field in the headers of postings to
the LML.  Here is a reprint from the List Posting Guidelines on the LML
homepage which discusses it:

>>>
When replying to a message please be sure the Subject field in your reply
editor reflects the subject matter of the post to which you're replying,
and not the volume/issue data of the Mail List issue that contained the
post.  The best way to insure proper threading is to copy/paste the exact
"Subject" heading from the original post into your reply's "Subject"
heading block, over-writing the volume/issue data which may be there.
Please restrain yourself from coming up with a new, 'cutesy' subject title,
as all you'll do is disconnect your post from its intended thread.  Please
note, this is very important now that the Lancair Mail List is being
archived interactively.  See the "Archives" section below for how to get to
them.
<<<

Once a discussion is started, the only way it will continue as a 'thread'
is if the 'subject' header remains identical from post to post.  (The
addition of the 'Re:' before the subject by your email program is
acceptable, as that combination of characters is recognized by search
engines and doesn't enter into the search parameters... anything else does,
even 'RE:' or 're:', as most engines are case-sensitive, and they are
mostly sensitized to see 'Re:' and nothing else.)  Other than the 'Re:',
the addition of even a question mark effectively disconnects the message
from the thread and starts a whole new discussion.  In most instances I
don't think this is the intent of the poster, it unfortunately just seems
to happen.

To illustrate the problem, here are a series of 'subjects' from a current
discussion:

1) Major Alterations 
2) Re: Major Alterations 
3) Re: Major Alterations 
4) Losing your insurance 
5) Further to <Losing your insurance> and major modifications 
6) Part 43 Appendix A 
7) Re: Avemco
8) Re: Major Alterations 

Needless to say, while the discussion is alive and active, it is fairly
obvious to both the casual reader as well as the posting participants, that
all of these subjects are relative to the original 'Major Alterations'
posting.  Unfortunately, this will not be the case a few months from now
when someone enters the archives and finds that first post... assuming he
has an interest in following up on the subject, what he will see when he
tries to follow the discussion are messages #1,2,3, and 8 from the list
above.  All of the very pertinent and important data which was so
generously shared by the posters of messages #4,5,6, and 7 will be lost to
him unless he does a keyword search and manages to choose the correct key
words.  He may get lucky if he decides to check prior and subsequent posts,
as these others would show up, but finding them that way is dependent
strictly on luck.  A prickly problem, isn't it?

Having myself been involved in online fora for more years than I care to
remember, and having served a 3+ year stint on Compuserve as a forum Sysop,
I have lived a goodly portion of my online messaging life dealing with what
is known as 'thread creep' or 'thread drift'.  It's sort of the opposite of
what happens here, as on the Compuserve (or AOL, or Genie, or ???) fora,
the forum software is such that replying to a message always carries the
title forward automatically.  Most people just keep replying without ever
changing the subject simply because it's so easy to do so.  Sooner or later
the initial topic sort of goes away, so a discussion with a particular
'subject' heading is now totally unrelated to that heading, ie, 'thread
creep'.  Our situation here is that we have a single topic of discussion,
but it has been manually disconnected into 5 separate threads, 4 with one
'subject' and 4 with different 'subjects', all in the span of one 24 hour
period.  Unfortunately this is the price we pay for the convenience and
ease of access of an email-based forum.

In closing, I would like to say that if it is your intention to divert a
discussion onto a new topic, please feel free to do so and change the
subject heading relative to the new topic as you see fit.  If, on the other
hand, you are contributing to an ongoing discussion, please accept the
original subject for your post as outlined above, and keep the thread
intact for the convenience of those who will read your words at a later
date.  Thanks for your time, and keep those posts coming!!!

    <Marv>