Re: OT: The joys of email (was: Re: CONLANG/ZBB crossover)

>Thread internal is what’s being discussed here. Threaded forums do
>exist;
Yeah, I do kno about them.


>This style of forum more-or-less eliminates replies to more than one
>message in one post, which makes it much easier to follow discussions;
IMO that depends on the style of discussion. It fits when the discussion
branches hevvily, and each reply is exactly in reply to the arguments of a
previous poster. But when the discussion remains focused on a central issue,
i.e. you have similar or related points made by multiple posters, I prefer
composite replies. Say someone asks help on some subject, let's say hir
conlang, and receives multiple slightly differing suggestions? If the
original poster would wish to then think acaps* how the suggestions compare
and what che's going to go with, there would be no "correct" place at all
for such a message in a "tree-shaped" discussion. There's no room for synthesis!

An ordered graph structure would eliminate that problem while being still as
easy to follo as a tree, but *that* I have never seen actually implemented.
Most likely because deducing the correct placement of each node would have
to be done on the basis of the message's contents.


>As for threading with email and usenet, mail/usenet user agents don’t
>use the message content to work out what’s a reply to what. Each email
>is accompanied by a number of headers: (...)
>All email clients that are at least half-good will add
>the In-Reply-To header; your email client isn’t so your emails don’t
>show up threaded in mine.
>Tristan.
Actually, I believe that's because I'm in nomail but have still been
replying via email (bit of a story there...) I didn't realize this was
causing any problems, because the arkives seem to be organized on the basis
of the subject line alone. I'm sending this one via the listserv interface,
so that should be different now. Still switching the subject to "OT: The
joys of email" tho; but hopefully that won't mangle anything?

John Vertical
*Online adaptation for "think aloud". :)

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