At 12:18 AM +0000 9/20/08, John Tudor wrote:
> > What problem(s) do you see with starting a new subject while
>> including the parent string after a "(was..." clause ? Rob D.
>>
>The way I see it is this..A new subject is exactly that...A NEW SUBJECT...
>
>If someone starts a thread, it's like starting a conversation. Imagine
>the situation where a group of people are sitting in a coffee shop
>having a chat about a movie. Someone else then joins the table and
>without waiting for us to finish, starts talking over everyone about
>their new car.
>
>I think we'd be reasonably pissed off. I believe when a person starts
>a thread, then that is the topic that they whish people to talk about.
>Others SHOULD either join in on the subject of conversation, OR move
>to another table and order their own coffee....
>
>I think changing the subject line to 'Was...' is the same as saying
>'yes, I know your talking about a movie, but have you seen my new car....'
Hi John-
I see where you are going with string ownership and feelings. Maybe
there's a solution that address this need too.
Repliers tend to veer from the initial subject "cue" very quickly so
its usually a matter of acknowledging pre-existing change(s). What is
the correct thing to do at this point? Maybe I'm wrong, but I've
considered it most polite to acknowledge when some one had introduced
something of interest by crediting the history but making the actual
subject line better reflect the changed content for other users down
the line. With careful, selective quoting, subject renaming and the
"was" clause, one should be able to follow the thread of choice and
its history quite easily. New subjects/directions tend to be
picked-up or dropped proportionally to interest.
Searches rely on unique terms wherever they are typed. The
effectiveness of the subject line after a search has been conducted
improves with term/situation accuracy when faced with many matches.
>I've seen other forums turn into an all out flame war when someone
>hijacks a thread.
Its natural for people to strongly identify with the angles that
tweak their interests. Renaming can be more honest and polite than
trying to leverage a discussion in a certain direction and assuming
everyone wants to go along. Not changing the subject in the
environment of simultaneous discussions produces frustration as well.
>I don't think it would turn into that here, but I do
>think it's kind of inconsiderate to the original poster. And as Martyn
>pointed out in a thread I started on this subject the other day..'it
>basically comes down to laziness...If there is anymore discussion
>needed on this, we should stop usingthis thread, and start a new
>one. (Or use the one I started the other day..
Thanks for pointing this option out. Feel free to change any subject
back to a previous one (verbatim) if you prefer it or think it would
be helpful. Wouldn't it be great if readers would search the
archives and pick-up old strings? I have done this for ones that I
recall as unfinished.
Note that Derek responded to the changed subject whereas he may not
have responded to "Forbes Quiet Places."
Derek-- Is there one, better way to handle changing subjects in terms
of sorting by threads in on-line email apps? The subjects changed
with "was" clauses sort very logically for me in Eudora. I have had
problems with other apps though. Rob D.
[Note: see also, "(was Changing the Subject Line (was Forbes Quiet Places"]
>Regards
>John
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