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Re: [Phys-l] Archive threads



Interleaved:

Michael Edmiston wrote:

The new system is keeping track of who you responded to rather than just noting the subject line. It creates a tree structure. If you respond to the original post, your response becomes one of the main branches sprouting from that original message. If you respond to a response, your message appears as a branch off of that later message. This has both advantages and disadvantages.

Advantage:
When viewing the archives, your response shows up as a direct response to the message you were looking at when you hit the reply button. That might be exactly what you want. It allows people to see who you were responding to. It allows a mapping of subtopics within larger topic without spawning new subject lines.

Disadvantage:
After reading a slug of posts on a topic, if you want to make a general comment about the entire subject, you have to search back and find the original post and respond to that.


This is easy w/ Netscape, if one is reading using the thread feature. Just scroll up to the beginning of the thread.

Disadvantage:
If you have read a slug of posts on a topic that has sprouted several branches (subtopics), and you want your post to appear as a new branch at the point when that new subtopic began, you have to search back to who first mentioned that topic, and reply to that post.

Disadvantage:
When reading the archives you have multiple paths to navigate if you want to follow the discussion. That can get confusing even though the intent was to make it more clear who was responding to whom.

Disadvantage:
If you want to create a new subject you cannot reply to someone. You have to create a new message and manually fill in the PHYS-L address. That's not unduly difficult if you have PHY-L in your address book, but it is extra work.


I never reply to someone when crating a new subject, just type in PHYS-L and the app completes the address. (after removing the old one, of course.)

Because I haven't searched the archives, I hadn't noticed the diff.

bc, not yet unhappy w/ the new system

I have listed more disadvantages than advantages, but I can imagine discussions for which the single advantage of tracking who responded to whom could outweigh all the disadvantages. However, I have been on some lists that operate this way, and I have never found the advantage to outweigh the disadvantages.

Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
Professor of Physics and Chemistry
Bluffton University
Bluffton, OH 45817
(419)-358-3270
edmiston@bluffton.edu

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