Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Communication in Mailinglist

[Kevin Vermeer <reemrevnivek@gmail.com>]

On Tue, Nov 23, 2010 at 12:58 PM, Christian Lohmaier <
lohmaier+ooofuture@googlemail.com <lohmaier%2Booofuture@googlemail.com>>wrote:

> Hi Larry, *,
>
> On Tue, Nov 23, 2010 at 6:53 PM, Larry Gusaas <larry.gusaas@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > [...]
> > Gmail very capable for mailing lists.
>
> Except for the very one drawback you just demonstrated:
> When changing the subject, gmail will break the thread (start a new
> one) as it will remove the references from the reply.
>

This only happens on this list, because every subject is prepended with
[tdf-discuss] and some replies get  Re: inserted after it while others
insert the Re: before the [tdf-discuss] token, leading to four kinds of
subjects like:

1. [tdf-discuss] Communication in Mailinglist
2. Re: [tdf-discuss] Communication in Mailinglist
3. [tdf-discuss] Re: Communication in Mailinglist
4. Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Communication in Mailinglist

Having these four different styles instead of just two is what causes
conversations to break. gmail (and possibly others) use the first and second
styles, and don't recognize that the third is a reply to the first,
generating the fourth.  What clients generate the third?

One solution to the problem is to agree on using either the second or third
style, and punish anyone who uses the banned version. This will be
difficult, as most people don't realize where the Re: goes in their own
replies, and some mail clients will default to the other version.  The
better solution in my mind is to remove the [tdf-discuss] part of the
subject.  I know it's the [tdf-discuss] mailing list because of the address
"discuss@documentfoundation.org" and the signature, and this information
doesn't have to be duplicated in the subject line.   Most modern mail
clients include some filter functionality to help differentiate between
mailing lists - browsing a list of subjects and expecting anyone who
communicates with you to label themselves with a token in brackets is rather
old-fashioned.  Also, having that token in every subject is redundant when
browsing properly filtered emails.
--
Kevin Vermeer

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