I've often changed the subject line. My
intention has never been to make it
more difficult for anyone to follow a thread,
but always to give a more appropriate title.
1. Dopey titles
===============
As Kit mentions, people often use dopey
titles, usually by oversight rather than
on purpose, although we do quite often
get variations on "question", "learner
question", "please help", etc., some of
which increase the probability of deletion
substantially. Precise, informative titles
give a signal that you are clued up and
are striving to make things as easy as possible
for Statalist members to reply helpfully.
2. No title at all
==================
Indeed, no title at all is also quite
common. I can't imagine a defence of
that.
3. Using another thread's title
===============================
Yet another common practice is to post
a question by replying to someone else's
posting on a different question but _not
changing the title_. Again, this is presumably
oversight and prompt changing of the title
is more helpful than leaving it be.
4. Morphing of thread
=====================
A thread changing direction is also common.
Enough said.
As the present FAQ maintainer, I am open
to further comments about this, but I'm tempted
to think this is all standard email stuff
and raises no questions specific to Statalist.
I have only one concrete suggestion:
whoever changes a subject line should _consider_
indicating that fact when they change. Suppose
the incoming is
question
you might change it to
problem with -xtreg- [was:question]
I say _consider_ because it is possible that
titles in this way accrete bits of past titles and
so become inordinately long if this is followed
too zealously.
Nick
[email protected]
Kit Baum
> Eric said
>
> I took a quick look at the Statalist FAQ but didn't see any
> guidance on
> something I find mildly irritating: the practice of altering the
> subject line. Somehow, some people can respond to a message without
> generating a "Re: " to the original subject. Others take it upon
> themselves to alter the original subject to something else, generally
> more informative. In either event, it makes it harder for the
> subscriber to identify the original posting & subsequent responses.
> Comments please.
>
>
> While there is an exhortation in the FAQ to ensure that informatve
> subject lines are used, sometimes we see something like "Re:
> Statalist-Digest vol 4 No 223". Those of us who read the
> digest do not
> have the automatic option of picking up the subject line, since when
> replying we are replying to the sender of the digest rather than the
> individual message. I try to remember to change the subject line (and
> sometimes copy/paste in from the original message!) but in
> other cases
> (like this one) it seems more appropriate to change it, even though
> that messes up threading.... It also makes the message header
> informative, if you are only viewing a list of message headers (as in
> the digest listing at HSPH, which I prefer to that at StataCorp).
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