From: Chad Perrin <perrin@...>
Date: 2007-09-05T23:10:17+09:00
Subject: Re: subject line

On Wed, Sep 05, 2007 at 11:45:33AM +0900, Trans wrote:
> On Sep 4, 4:56 pm, Chad Perrin <per...@apotheon.com> wrote:
> >
> > Any time you tell someone to completely change the tools (s)he uses,
> > you're essentially telling him/her that his/her preferences don't matter.
> > That's why.
> 
> No. First of all, that assumes I had foreknowledge that you had
> already tried the google-groups interface. Have you? Secondly telling
> you that a different tool moots an issue you're having, has nothing to
> do with discounting your preferences. Lastly, preferences change.
> That's what happened to me. While, I still miss some things about my
> KMail client, the benefits of the web interface out-weight the loss.

You've got that backwards.  Your statement assumes that others *haven't*
tried it, and furthermore assumes that they can and *must* try it to be
one of the cool kids like you.

I find that the dubious benefits of a web interface are almost totally
eclipsed by the benefits of an interface over which I have far greater
control, especially since the benefits you seem to want me to "enjoy" are
benefits I already *do* enjoy, unrelated to the reasons I actually would
prefer a visible marker in my inbox view indicating the list source of
messages.


> 
> So I'm not dissing you. I'm just offering up an possible alternative.

The suggestion was poorly presented, and carried a mildly insulting tone
across to at least this reader.  You may not have intended offense, but
if that's the case, you've failed to express yourself clearly.


> 
> You seem to be a bit upset because so many people have disagreed with
> you. Yes? I know that feeling. Often times however I eventually
> discover there is a fair reason for it. I wouldn't be surprised if
> your MUA has a means of doing what you want in a different way --you
> just haven't discovered it yet. (Hmmm.. maybe I missed it... What MUA
> was it, btw?)

No.  I'm not upset because people disagreed.  Disagree all you like.
What bothers me is the "everyone who disagrees with me is a luddite, an
obstinate fool, or a bastard" attitude that seems to prevail.

The combination of my MUA and my OS environment provides at least two
opportunities for doing what I want:

  1. I can use the list-subscribe capability of mutt to identify the
  list.  Doing this, unfortunately, obscures the original source of the
  message so that I can't tell who sent it to the list until I open it.
  I'm using this now -- but the jury's still out on whether that's an
  improvement, since it interferes with my ability to associate names
  with personalities easily when I'm participating in mailing list
  activity.

  2. I can munge the subject line before it hits my inbox using tools
  available to me as a FreeBSD user -- tools including Ruby, procmail,
  Perl, and other options.  This would suit *me* perfectly, but because I
  tend to be more courteous than that, I won't take that approach.  I'm
  sure you'd all love to see every message I send to the list suddenly
  start appearing with [Rb] at the beginning of the subject line.  Also,
  the fact I can do this doesn't address the preferences of others who
  may be using more crippled MUAs and OS platforms.

To answer directly: I'm using mutt as my MUA, and I've discovered means
of doing exactly what I'd like to be done with the subject line, but
there's always a trade-off.

-- 
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Baltasar Gracian: "A wise man gets more from his enemies than a fool from
his friends."