On Tuesday 01 March 2005 08:38 am, David Hoffman wrote: > On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 01:12:35 -0600, Gustavo Seabra > > <gustavo.seabra@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > Another thing that may be interesting is to suggest the person who > > made the original post to, when a solution to his problem is found, > > finish the discussion with a last post adding something like [SOLVED] > > to the subject line, and indicating /what/ exactly solved the problem. > > That should help the readers to know the problem was finally solved > > without even having to read the messages; helps the monthly > > statistics; helps *a lot* when searching the archives later. > > Unfortunately, changing the subject lines breaks threading. It makes > it look like an entirely new thread. Tain't necessarily so. Changing the subject line does *not* break the thread on real^H^H^H^Hmany mail readers. People who indulge in this practice are commonly referred to as "hijackers". (Remember, just because Microsoft products work that way doesn't mean that it is correct.) > The archives, news readers, and > some mail programs (gmail) can sort messages into conversations based > on the subject line. If you change the subject line, then the "Solved" > portion of the message shows up as another thread. Again, not on real^H^H^H^Hmany mail readers. Also, you are mistaken about the archives. Both the MARC and Redhat archives *do* preserve threads. > What might be better is to suggest NOT changing subject lines and to > know that if you happen to be looking at the archives, the end of the > thread may have a solution for you. "may" is too indefinite. I'd rather know that the proposed solution was indeed effective in at least one case; [SOLVED] is good. -- cmg
