Re: Talk: IDs

In article <356rsk$le...@gagme.wwa.com>, Matt Messina  <mes...@umich.edu> wrote:
>
>In article <351b4i$ee...@gagme.wwa.com> Bob Allison, bob...@wwa.com writes:
>>    Originally, I asked, since most people prefer having an ID on a 
>> subject line, why not put them at the end to get them out of our 
>> collective face?
>
>I *wish* that we could put them in the Keywords header, but most
>newsreaders don't display Keywords until you see the article, and then
>there's the problem of getting people to use that header...
>
>>    Well, on the groups, and in email, not one person liked the idea.  On 
>> some systems the end would get chopped off even if it wasn't on the 
>> system of the person who posted it.
>
>I wouldn't mind the identifiers be at the end, but that's because my
>favorite newsreader (Nuntius for Macintosh) easily displays Subject lines
>that are 60 characters long.  Most newsreaders truncate the Subject line
>to far fewer characters than that, though.  In addition, when an article
>passes through some machines that are configured wrong, the machine
>truncates the Subject line to approximately 25 characters.
> 
>>    OK, putting them at the end won't work.  So what could be done to keep 
>> them, but also make them less annoying?  How about all lower case, in ()?
>> I did this post that way as an example.
>
>I agree with Zeus Paleologos <rl3...@netcom.com>, who, elsewhere in this
>thread, said that the IDs should be all the same length and capitalized
>(LIN,GIF,ANM,COL,3-D,BIN,BIG,RPO,REQ,DIS,Q??,A..,INF,ANC,FAQ--what happened
>to PIX? and what's the difference between INF and ANC?) to make it easy to
>scan Subject lines.  IMO, putting IDs in parens would be a mistake, as it
>just wastes two characters, making the ID even more "in your face."  If I
>had my way (If I ran the zoo :-)) IDs would look like 
>"Subject: DIS Identifiers".

   We tried the 3-letter IDs at the beginning.  The problem there is that 
they are more cryptic than a word.  The new reader may quickly understand 
words like request, talk, and answer, but those three letter ones require 
that you've read the FAQ, and who read the FAQ?

   Don't get me wrong, I think that it's the best way, in theory.  It's 
the one I thoughth of at the beginning, but in practice it left something 
to be desired.

   As to what's the diff between info and announce, they both are IDs for 
specific information, but announce is of a higher level of importance.  
For example, if I add some files to my FTP site, that's info, but if you 
start a new FTP site, that's an announcement.

>Identifiers in this group are unique in the sense that they can change
>throughout a thread (REQUEST, GIF, LINE), whereas identifiers in
>rec.arts.tv.soaps, the canonical example of a labeled newsgroup, don't.
>This presents a problem, as some newsreaders thread by Subject rather than
>by References, but I don't see any way around that.

   This brings up the point of changing the ID when posting.  If a post 
goes to r.a.a, I can check the ID and change it (although that's all I 
ever tough in a post, I never touch the message itself, just the header).

   But it would be great if I didn't have to do that.  I'm not complaining, 
I just think it's a good idea for people on any group to change the 
subject line to reflect the current state of a thread.

   Have you ever picked a post to read, and it had nothing to do with the 
subject line?  Did it feel like a waste of your time?

   Oh well, I guess all this chatter hasn't changed anything.  Using one 
full word at the beginning of the subject line is the answer at this point.


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