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Hi all,
I have a problem. It's not an earth-shattering problem, but it's a niggling
problem that has gotten worse in the last couple of months, and it's to do
with LUGNET, which is of course why I'm starting this thread here.
This problem mostly concerns the effect follow-ups have on
compartmentalisation (a.k.a. "compartmentalization"). Now, LUGNET is, as we
all know, very compartmentalised, and it's something that's mostly easy to
live with, and for some, a very good thing (apparently). At least, it was
originally easy to live with. From time to time, a new newsgroup would crop
up and one could subscribe for a time, read its related threads, and then
lose interest. No problem there. Then, it seems, a few too many people
learnt about the FUT or "follow-ups to:" facility, at which point things
began to go a bit pear-shaped.
Now, more and more frequently, I will be reading a thread only to find that
it has disappeared. Why? Because, although the thread of conversation took a
completely logical progression, it happened to (oops!) change subject. Now,
despite my complete interest in the conversation, and despite its (I state
again) completely logical flow, it has gone. Where? To a newsgroup which I
am not subscribed to.
There is another phenomenon which goes hand in hand with this. I will scan
my newsgroup and I will see a new thread. I will begin to read it, but I
will quickly become confused because this thread has begun in
mid-conversation, and the participants are referring to things that I don't
know about! Where is the rest of this thread? It is, of course, in a
newsgroup which I am not subscribed to.
So why is this a problem? Well, I haven't used many different methods of
reading LUGNET news, but I would guess that it stems primarily from the fact
that my newsreader doesn't regard a thread FUT'd to a different group as the
same thread. To continue reading the thread, I must subscribe to the other
n.g., and wade through its messages to find the continuation of the thread
that I want. As XFUTs occur more and more, I must subscribe to more and more
n.g.'s, eventually I'm sure I'll be subscribed to them all. Fortunately my
newsreader only downloads message headers, or else I would begin to waste
significant amounts of disk space on zillions of other threads that I care
nothing about. It certainly wastes my screen real-estate and my time, to
have to scan for threads that have gone AWOL. Suddenly, I have competely
lost all of the benefits that compartmentalisation has previously provided!
From whence comes this "penchant" some people have for moving conversation
threads around willy-nilly? Surely it's better to compartmentalise the
starting conversation rather than its momentary change of subject? Why on
earth would I suddenly "switch off" just because someone wanted to mention
something different in subject, but related to the conversation? Surely if
we must compartmentalise, we should do it by _thread_ (i.e. _conversation_)
rather than subject?
I feel that people are being too lazy with FUTs. Please feel free to use
them with people who have _started_ a thread in the wrong place, that's a
grand use for them. But please leave the active threads alone! If someone
feels that they want to change the subject and discuss it at length, then
they can close the old discussion _properly_ in the old group and start a
new discussion _properly_ in the new newsgroup. That way, both conversation
threads make _sense_.
Thanks for reading,
Paul
LUGNET member 164
http://www.geocities.com/doctorshnub/
P.S. Todd, if you're reading this, due to overwhelming geopolitical and
economic considerations, I regard an Australian auction posting in
lugnet.loc.au to be completely ON-TOPIC, but I wouldn't say no to a
lugnet.loc.au.b-s-t compartment.
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: FUT, FUT, FUT....
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| (...) I don't think this is a problem; it just takes some getting used to. It's also nice for people to *note* when they are setting a followup -- something like "[followups to lugnet.foo.group]" at the bottom of the message. Of course, threads (...) (24 years ago, 23-May-00, to lugnet.admin.general)
| | | Re: FUT, FUT, FUT....
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| Paul Baulch skrev i meddelandet ... (...) which I completely agree with. It *is* a problem, as soon as you're not subscribing to all groups, that threads get lost somewhere else. Being connected to the 'net by modem, paying connection time by the (...) (24 years ago, 23-May-00, to lugnet.admin.general)
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