Re: st: Replying if in digest mode

[Phil Schumm <pschumm@uchicago.edu>]

On Aug 2, 2013, at 12:32 PM, Richard Williams <richardwilliams.ndu@gmail.com> wrote:
> I avoid the digest for such reasons. Instead I have a filter that sends my Statalist messages to a separate folder. Then I can read or not read and reply or not reply as I wish. With most mail programs filtering is easy. I have filters and folders set up for a lot of other types of messages too. For that matter, the email address I am using here is dedicated to Statalist only, which further helps to cut down on clutter.


+1

With digest mode, you sacrifice threading, which makes it a lot easier to skim through the day's postings and read only what you want.  Also, note that non-digest subscription yields much more useful (local) search results, since with digest subscription, the fact that a (cumulative) message contains a particular combination of search tokens is not, by itself, very informative.  And, if you fall behind and don't have the time to catch up, executing "Mark all as read" on your Statalist mailbox takes only a second.  Finally, modern email clients make it easy to have multiple email addresses, for those who prefer to use a dedicated email address for Statalist.

Personally, whatever effort is required for this strategy is much less than the effort required to try to construct a response to a message extracted from a digest.  That said, I recognize that this is a largely subjective preference, and apart from making sure that people fully understand the alternatives, there is nothing more to say.


-- Phil


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