[ale] Request to Reduce Off Topic Posts

[Robert Reese]

Hello James,

Monday, July 12, 2010, 3:47:07 PM, you wrote:

> Tell it to Google.

> But really, it doesn't make sense to change the subject of an email to
> start a new thread. If you have a different topic to talk about then
> start a new thread. "Was this" and "Used to be that" parentheticals
> are just as annoying as having to re-mute the thread.

As one of those that do change the subject line, I need to explain my choice to remain doing so.  In fact, I consider the changing of the subject line to be following etiquette rather than going against it.  The recipient is alerted to a change in the topic, has the ability to follow (or ignore) the forked threads of their choosing, and makes thread management actually easier in most cases.

As Sparr pointed out, the difficulty you are experiencing lies with the poor threading processing of your email client.  In particular, it is not following the thread ID properly; if it did you wouldn't find this problematic.  Ironically, this is the opposite of the problem with people "replying to" a received email in order to create a whole new post: the result is that the new post is threaded by the email client as a follow-up to the existing thread.  Point of example: Aaron did exactly that with his post "[ale] ALE CENTRAL MTG. for Thursday, July 15, 2010 (7:30pm)".  This is actually a reply to this thread with the subject changed.

Oh, the irony.

Granted, either of these problems are annoying with off-topic threads.  However, when these affect on-topic threads it really is much better to see the changed subject lines, particularly if the thread wanders to or from an area of interest or expertise.

I understand your frustration and wish I could help you fix the issue.  Yet changing what I've spent the last decade or so doing as a courtesy, and considered following etiquette to a majority of recipients, in deference to a technical failing of one or more recipients would be irresponsible and, frankly, rude to the rest of the list.  As Spock was fond of pointing out, "...the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one."

I'm sure you understand, even perhaps agree, why I will continue to follow my long practice of changing the subject line to match the subject of the post.

Cheers,
Robert~