woolstar@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu (John D Woolverton) (09/16/89)
I like to follow news "threds" by subject line, and have even been thinking of adding "sort news by subject" to my favorate news reader. However, having 20 articles in a row, all with the same subject, and nothing but author names to distiquish them seemed a bit sad. Also, when I reply to an article, there is a certain amount of wondering whether to change the subject or leave it as Re: ... So what was kicked around here was changing things a bit. Subject: Tired of bogus subject lines would still be the same, and we would add Title: Proposing a solution to bogus subject lines. Subjects would be created by the first poster, and follups would leave the subject the same, but each article would have it's own Title. The news program would not create "Title: Re ..." That way when I sorted all my news, I could have the Subject: header, and then all the titles underneath. It kind of matches up with my definition of subject and title. Similar to how things are in a library. You can sometimes find lots of books on a certain subject, but they will all have different titles, that give a clue to their slant on the subject. Also you would be able to tell the questions from the answers easier. This still requires people to fill out Title: and/or modify the Subject:, and there would be plenty of problems. (Like people using old news programs that don't do titles, and continually seeing, article: ####, title: (none) ) I think it would help though. John d Woolverton, Video Bits woolstar@csvax.caltech.edu
karl@socrates.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) (09/16/89)
woolstar@cit-vax.caltech.edu writes:
So what was kicked around here was changing things a bit.
Subject: Tired of bogus subject lines
would still be the same, and we would add
Title: Proposing a solution to bogus subject lines.
Two things...
[a] Forward, into the past: A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far
away, the Usenet used "Title:" rather than "Subject:". Read your
installation guide for information regarding A News compatibility, and
read RFC1036 for an example of "the old format."
[b] Your proposed use of "Title:" rather closely matches the intended
use of the already-defined "Summary:" header. Again, see RFC1036.
--Karl