| Re: [stellation-res] Newsgroup |
On Mon, 2002-08-26 at 15:44, Florin Iucha wrote: > On Mon, Aug 26, 2002 at 10:10:38AM -0400, Jim Wright - IBM Research wrote: > > At 09:38 AM 8/26/2002 +0000, Mark C. Chu-Carroll wrote: > > >- I've yet to find a mailer that's as good at dealing with threads as > > > my newsreader..... > > [Back at work for a couple of days, then off again until next Tuesday..] > > > > I favor using a newsgroup for design discussions; my mailer does a bad job > > of handling threads. Newsgroups also make it easier (imo) to manage > > I see a thread here... folks, if your mailer is not good enough, why not > change it? <hint wink="yes">mutt</hint> Well... One big difference: in a newsgroup, a server keeps all copies of all old messages, and I've yet to see a newsreader or mailer that doesn't get the references lines correct, allowing perfect threading. In mail... If a message gets deleted, that breaks the thread. And tons of mailers get back-message references wrong in outgoing mail, so even if your mailer is perfect. the threads don't necessarily work > If you really want to split the discussion, my first suggestion would be > to add a "X-message-flag" to it to allow for sorting. > If that is not acceptable, create a second mailing list - that way you can > "migrate" threads from one list to another. I *hate* things like extended headers for categorization. In my experience, they're great in theory, but in practice, there's no way in hell that you'll actually get people to use them consistently. And if they're not used consistently, they're worthless. > But having to use two different programs would be a real pain... Really, we should be doing that anyway. Regardless of whether we decide to move design discussions to news, anyone who's actively working on the system should be reading the newsgroup. > > multiple simultaneous discussions. Not as important: I suspect a newsgroup > > will do a better job of keeping related posts in time order. Timestamps for > > mail seem to vary widely; my primary mail client (Eudora) sorts by > > timestamp, so comments and replies are often listed out of order... > > Change it into sort by threads. > > > A newsgroup will (probably) make it easier for newcomers to come up to speed > > on design issues and other high-level discussions. > > Easier than a mailing list archive? How? My newsreader is a heck of lot more pleasant to use than the mailing list archive browser. Also, the bulk of mail on the mailing list is day-to-day issues that newcomers may not care about. In news, we'd only have the more high level discussions, and they'd be clearly threaded, and readable and browsable through your favorite newsreader. So far, we seem evenly split... Jim and I seem to favor newsgroups, Florin and Dave sticking with the mailing list. Anyone else care to come in and break the tie? -Mark -- Mark Craig Chu-Carroll, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center *** The Stellation project: Advanced SCM for Collaboration *** http://www.eclipse.org/stellation *** Work Email: mcc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx ------- Personal Email: markcc@xxxxxxxxxxx
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