Re: Re: Re: Request to Authors

[Alnisa Allgood <fanfic@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 2:38 PM -0400 5/3/04, ivygort wrote:
> Hi Howard,
>
> I'm glad you could join us.  You have an interesting idea about replying to
> the thread. How does that work?
>
> If I reply to the thread two weeks later does it still archive in the same
> thread?
>
> And what If I reply and delete the Re?  Is it different for those of 
> us who our email programs to those who use the features on the Yahoo 
> website?

Yes, this is massively different for those of us who use email 
clients rather than the website. Three reasons why this is a VERY bad 
idea, even for those using the web:

1) Parts Are Treated Differently
Yes, even using web mail (which I have no statistics on how many 
users actually do use YahooGroups  web interface to manage mail), 
many stories are 3-5, 5-10, or over 10 parts.  Unless parts are 
posted at the same time parts are not grouped together via the yahoo 
web interface.  If you reply to the original post, and the post has 
generated a slew of conversation, and or feedback, your new post 
becomes one of many indistinguishable reply posts.

If you change the subject to indicate a new chapter, your post then 
generates a new thread, making using Howard's function invalid. Since 
each new chapter would have it's own thread.

This method may work somewhat for web users, ONLY if feedback is 
never a direct reply to the message, and or if the post doesn't 
generate a lot of interest. Since I've always assumed the goal of 
posting a story was to generate interest and hopefully discussion, or 
at least feedback, then having subsequent chapters as replies, just 
makes finding the story harder. Especially since the web interface 
doesn't allow you to group by author.

2) Screws over Non-Web Users
The same issues for the web carry over into the email client realm, 
but are exaggerated, because, email client users CAN sort by author, 
they CAN group like titles, and CAN weed out replies to and feedback 
relatively quickly making accessing the stories easier.

For example my email is set to filter all incoming mail from Buffy 
Loves Willow and Buffy Wants Willow groups to a single Mailbox called 
BuffyWillowSlash.  The messages are color coded as the come in, and 
sorted.  My sort is by  label, author, date, subject, with a grouping 
by subject added.  What does this do.  It means my Buffy mail box, 
which currently has about 9,500 messages in, gets ordered for me in 
an easy to use way.  ALL incoming messages that I haven't read are 
labeled in a faint purple, and display at the bottom of the mailbox. 
If Crys Loch or any author submits a multi-part story, today, 
tomorrow, or across a few weeks, their posts are grouped by both 
their name and the story title (subject), then ordered by submit date 
and time.

This is the benefit of using an email client rather than a web 
client. Sure GMail will offer some of these abilities, but currently 
no other web client does.

If the post is Fiction, I change the label from faint purple to 
either red or blue. Blue is for pure Buffy/Willow goodness, red is 
for those stories that are Buffy/Willow/Tara, or Buffy/Faith, 
Willow/Faith, etc, that get tossed in.

I also delete non-active conversations. So while today, my 
BuffyWillowSlash mailbox contains conversations on this topic, 
nicknames, HoC Website updates, etc.  In two weeks, all post related 
to those topics will be gone, just leaving the fiction and new 
conversations (unless I thought the conversation was just well 
written or discussed, then I might give it a green label, and also 
save it).

To date, I have about 8000 posts, that are just pure Buffy/Willow 
fiction dating back from 1999. Then maybe 500 or so posts that I 
consider current conversations, and the rest of my Buffy mailbox.

Being able to partially clean my mailbox, by doing a find on Re: in 
the subject, is entirely beneficial, and a great time saver.

3) Replies Can't Distinguish Parts
Okay, this is covered in both one and two but deserves it's own 
mention. Changing the subject of a thread creates a new thread 
(sometimes). I'd loved to state this unequivocally, but it's not. 
Just take a look at the nicknames thread, via the web interface. 
There is the thread following the original poster, and about five 
splintered threads, based on slight subject changes, or the use of 
Re: versus not using Re:, etc.

In all honesty, if you use the reply button, don't change the 
subject, then your post should make the original thread. But it 
doesn't always, based on how some email clients handle replies. Also 
if you hit reply, and only add to the subject, say (Re: Nicknames 
-Question), this should follow the original thread, but if someone 
replies to that post, it will splinter to its own thread. Etc., Etc., 
Etc.

So if you have a post like Lobo70's Slayers, The Series  which has 
over 47 posts involved, finding the actual post would be a nightmare 
under the proposed system.  I imagine it would even be worse for web 
users, who can't tell how large a post is. At least I can see a 1k 
post and assume theres no story content in that.

Okay very long winded, but please, please, please don't be misguided. 
I'm all in agreement with Howard that finding posts and updates needs 
to be easier, especially via the web, I just don't think this 
proposal would make it so.  Clearer subjects on the other hand might. 
It's far easier tto find

	Slayers, The Series, Season One, Episode One
	Slayers, The Series, Season One, Episode Two
	Slayers, The Series, Season One, Episode Three

than it was to find

	Conversations in Rome
	Understanding in Rome
	Seizing the Moments in Rome
	etc.

No offense to the author, because otherwise the stories were very 
clearly labeled, , and a quick search for subjects containing Rome, 
is able to group them, but it wasn't til the subject was changed to:

	In Rome 9: Turned on In Rome
	In Rome 10: Pronoun Trouble In Rome

etc

that it was easy to group the series.  In fact, I went back to modify 
the subject, so that story fell in order in my mailbox.

Sorry for the long post.

Alnisa

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Willow: "It's a good fight, Buffy, and I want in."
Buffy:  "I kinda love you."
                     'Choices'

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