ntt@dciem.UUCP (Mark Brader) (01/04/84)
When a message generates a long chain of follow-ups, the subject lines often become uninformative. You might see, for instance, user A posting an item with a subject of "Abortion is murder". User B disagrees and posts an item whose automatic subject is "Re: Abortion is murder". User A enters a follow-up to this, subject "Re: Abortion is murder", and now which item is user C's "Re: Abortion is murder" a follow-up to, and what is C's point of view? The better (more specific) the original subject line, the LESS likely it is to be applicable to the follow-ups. I therefore propose a new header field: aspect. Postnews would prompt for both a subject and an aspect, and readnews, when generating a follow-up, would retain the subject but prompt for a new aspect. By effectively lengthening the subject field to two lines, this would also perhaps lead to longer and more informative subjects. By making the aspect optional, compatibility with existing net software is retained. (I'm not sure "aspect" is the best name, by the way, but it took me a couple of days to think of it after I had the idea.) So we might now see A posting Subject: Abortion Aspect: Murder, that's what it is! And B says Subject: Re: Abortion Aspect: pro-choice And A says Subject: Re: Abortion Aspect: A's ramblings notwithstanding, it's still murder And when C says Subject: Re: Abortion Aspect: B doesn't know how to spell Then we know what the new message is about. I think the aspect would be very useful in all discussions where follow-ups proliferate. What do the net gurus and others think? (Note: the example subject is just that, an example. No opinion is expressed.) Mark Brader, NTT Systems Inc.
mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) (01/06/84)
There are already plans for a 2nd subject field, just like the proposed "Aspect", called "Summary". You're supposed to use it in followups (you'll be prompted for it after you type in your article) to summarize in one line what you're adding to the discussion. It's partly implemented. Mark
braddy@houxl.UUCP (D.BRADDY) (01/06/84)
This is a great idea. When will it be available...? ===David Braddy houxl!braddy
ka@hou3c.UUCP (Kenneth Almquist) (01/06/84)
Until the summary feature is available, you can always modify the "Subject:" line to refect changes in topic. If you have 2.10, at least, just edit the subject line after the followup command has put you into the editor. Kenneth Almquist