Re: FILTERS: Just type a relevant Subject in English

Steve Witham (sw@tiac.net)
Sat, 11 Oct 1997 21:27:58 -0400


>Hmmm, now how do we handle topic drift? See, it doesn't stop boneheads
>from posting off-topic replies. And it doesn't stop boneheads from
>monkey-see-monkey-do use of the *wrong* headers. But it *is* a speed bump
>that might slow down drive-by posters.

Personally I wish people would rewrite the Subject in English if the
subject has indeed shifted. In general I advocate not getting all involved
in technical supposed solutions like SUBJ CODES that are unnatural for
humans.

I ignore messages with Subjects under which conversations I'm not interested
have been happening. If people are too lazy to change the Subject line,
I just assume they have nothing exciting to say. This isn't necessarily
true but it's shunning behavior and it saves effort on my part. We have
to develop more contemptuous attitudes toward awkward social-techno hybrids
like email lists. And contept takes practice! Skip this post!

Most threads aren't worth three days of posts anyway. Think of something
NEW to talk about!

--Steve

--
sw@tiac.net    Steve Witham    www.tiac.net/users/sw under deconstruction
"...when activated, it pops a message off the bag
    and recurs with the tail of the bag."
             --Vijay Saraswat and Patrick Lincoln