On Nov 28, 2007 9:48 AM, Daniel Brown <parasane@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Good morning (/afternoon/evening) all; > > This is more or less an RFC-type email, hence the subject line. I > would like to see your comments on this case, and maybe we can forge > some sort of agreement or unofficial treaty or something. > > Oftentimes we see a user post a question to the list, with ongoing > discussion back-and-forth on a troublesome issue, and when a solution > is found, the subject line has an added [SOLVED] tag on it. While > this makes sense in a forum style arena, where posts are binded > statically in the same group, it defeats the purpose of mailing list > archives such as Nabble and GMANE. A recent email from this morning > illustrates the problem, as displayed presently at this page: > http://www.nabble.com/PHP---General-f140.html > > The email with the subject "The PHP License" received commentary > from both Jochem Maas and myself, and the OP (AmirBehzad Eslami) > replied to the message, appending the [SOLVED] tag to the subject. > This is not a serious issue in this particular matter, as it was a > simple thank-you message out of politeness (which is greatly > appreciated, Amir!). However, using just a single example should help > to emphasize my point exponentially when you consider the frequency of > occurrences we see following the [SOLVED]-appended route. > > On 12 September, 2007, Zbigniew Szalbot posted a message to the > list about a segmentation fault in PHP 5.2.3. Over the next 24 > hours-plus, exactly sixty comments passed back-and-forth on the > thread. When a solution was found, it was posted in a separate email > with the [SOLVED] tag added to the subject line, and two additional > comments added to that (entirely new) thread. > > Why is this such a critical issue? Because if we hope not to have > to answer the same questions over and over again, instructing people > to properly STFW, then we should at least be contributing to proper > archival and documentation of problems we've successfully solved. > Using the aforementioned example, we check Google for the same > problem: > > > http://www.google.com/search?q=php+5.2.3+segmentation+fault+core+dumped > > Hooray! Someone else has had the exact same list of problems, and > now I can simply go through all of the responses and it should > (fingers crossed!) correct my issues as well. > > Message 58.... 59.... getting close!.... sixty-one.... WHAT?!? No > solution? Back to Google.... only to find that each result is exactly > the same discussion, never including the final three emails. > > So the summary of my proposal is as follows: > > 1.) An issue has been identified with the list whereby > improper archival will likely lead to repeat questions and unnecessary > traffic to the list. > 2.) I propose that we discontinue the act of subject > modification to indicate a change in status of the issue (SOLVED, > ALSO, ANOTHER PROBLEM, etc.) unless a completely different problem is > reached or question is asked. This will allow a step-by-step document > (of sorts) to be created and made "searchable" on the web. > > > > Comments welcomed! > > -- > Daniel P. Brown > [office] (570-) 587-7080 Ext. 272 > [mobile] (570-) 766-8107 I haven't checked this mail in several days. So... sorry if this thread is "defunct". =D As others have mentioned, the problem is hitting "New" email. Many (Dare I say "all"? No, no. No I won't.) email clients are smart enough to thread emails even if the subject has changed (and I know we have discussed that issue as well). So, hitting "reply" and adding on [SOLVED] *shouldn't* do anything... theoretically.... to break the thread and start a new one. Here's the real kicker... how do we enforce your proposed suggestion(s)? As active as this list is with new people coming regularly, the newer people won't know these *rules*. Throwing it on the welcome message, IMO, would only hit the people who read it.... which is probably about 5%. Oh, I have an idea....... let's have a test! just to get on the list! You have to pass the test to send/receive messages! Ok, since it's taken me 30 minutes to write this email (I keep getting distracted), I'm quitting... Any thoughts? ~Philip
