Hi group,

I would like to raise my voice against the use of overly long subject lines that run out of space on the line provided.

Complete sentences are not necessary. A few, well chosen words should suffice and spare the user the nuisance of opening mail that ultimately is of no value to him.

Maxim



--
gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list

On Sonntag, 13. Juli 2008, maxim wexler wrote:
> Hi group,
>
> I would like to raise my voice against the use of overly long subject lines
> that run out of space on the line provided.

what is 'overly long' and what space are you talking about?

>
> Complete sentences are not necessary. A few, well chosen words should
> suffice and spare the user the nuisance of opening mail that ultimately is
> of no value to him.

so you are opening mails if the subject is a sentence no matter what the
sentence is telling you?

--
gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list

Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:

On Sonntag, 13. Juli 2008, maxim wexler wrote:


Hi group,

I would like to raise my voice against the use of overly long subject lines
that run out of space on the line provided.



what is 'overly long' and what space are you talking about?



Complete sentences are not necessary. A few, well chosen words should
suffice and spare the user the nuisance of opening mail that ultimately is
of no value to him.



so you are opening mails if the subject is a sentence no matter what the
sentence is telling you?





I prefer as much info as possible myself. Sometimes the subject can be
one thing but because there is little info in it, it turns out to be
something else. Of course, a error message can be really nice too.
It's good if you are searching for the error you are having. I would
rather have a long one than a short one with not enough info to know
whether I can help or not. Of course, the one for this is short but
doesn't mention anything about others being to long. I was hoping to
see someone suggesting that people should have better than "need help"
or something. Maybe it should have been " can we have shorter subject
lines please" or something like that. Of course, that means it is
longer. LOL


I also wish the forum subject lines could be longer and have a special
spot for "solved" as well. That is their problem tho.


Dale

:-) :-)
--

gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list

On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 10:40:08AM -0700, maxim wexler wrote:

> I would like to raise my voice against the use of overly long subject lines that run out of space on the line provided.
>
> Complete sentences are not necessary. A few, well chosen words should suffice and spare the user the nuisance of opening mail that ultimately is of no value to him.

Under what circumstances does too much info hurt? It's not like a PhD
thesis, it's just, say, 10 words instead of 2 or 3.

--
... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._.
Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman & rocket surgeon / felix@crowfix.com
GPG = E987 4493 C860 246C 3B1E 6477 7838 76E9 182E 8151 ITAR license #4933
I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o
--
gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list

On Sun, 13 Jul 2008 12:23:09 -0700, felix@crowfix.com wrote:

> Under what circumstances does too much info hurt? It's not like a PhD
> thesis, it's just, say, 10 words instead of 2 or 3.

When viewed on a narrow screen and the first few words convey no useful
information on their own. I think the important point is that subject
lines should be concise and succinct. Long is not a problem in itself, as
long as every word is relevant. Subjects line "Please help me! I have a
problem with xyz" can be as useless as "urgent problem".


--
Neil Bothwick

What is the difference between Mechanical Engineers and Civil Engineers?
Mechanical Engineers build weapons, Civil Engineers build targets.

Dale ha scritto:
Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:

I prefer as much info as possible myself. Sometimes the subject can be
one thing but because there is little info in it, it turns out to be
something else. Of course, a error message can be really nice too.
It's good if you are searching for the error you are having. I would
rather have a long one than a short one with not enough info to know
whether I can help or not.


+1

m.
--
gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list

--- On Sun, 7/13/08, Volker Armin Hemmann <volker.armin.hemmann@tu-clausthal.de> wrote:

> From: Volker Armin Hemmann <volker.armin.hemmann@tu-clausthal.de>
> Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] proper subject lines
> To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org
> Date: Sunday, July 13, 2008, 11:32 AM
> On Sonntag, 13. Juli 2008, maxim wexler wrote:
> > Hi group,
> >
> > I would like to raise my voice against the use of
> overly long subject lines
> > that run out of space on the line provided.
>
> what is 'overly long' and what space are you
> talking about?

Infant! The toy box is full and some toys are left behind.

>
> >
> > Complete sentences are not necessary. A few, well
> chosen words should
> > suffice and spare the user the nuisance of opening
> mail that ultimately is
> > of no value to him.
>
> so you are opening mails if the subject is a sentence no
> matter what the
> sentence is telling you?
>

Buffoon! The sentence is telling me nothing because it ain't all there.

> --
> gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list



--
gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list

On Monday 14 July 2008, Willie Wong wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 07:11:05PM +0200, Penguin Lover Alan McKinnon
squawked:
> > On Sunday 13 July 2008, Mick wrote:
> > > Anyway, as others asked - how long is too long for this purpose?
> >
> > for obvious reasons, anything longer than 80 characters
>
> Just to be pedantic:
>
> Remember that the mailing list prepends the list name, so I think it
> ought to be
>
> 80 - strlen("[gentoo-user] ") = 66 chars.
>
> And if you care about most console mail readers, take mutt for
> example, the default install definitely does not use more than half of
> the 80 chars screen width for displaying the subject line. So now you
> are down to 40 - 14 = 26.
>
> Oh wait, your question may incite a big discussion with 6 levels of
> replies:
>
> 26 - 6 * strlen("Re: ") = 2.
>
> Ah! I see why someone changed the subject of this thread to just "OK".
>
> ;-)

Apologies, I was being facetious (I corrected the Subject field back to the
original on this reply). There is indeed a need to write meaningful Subject
lines and keep them as short as possible. However, the 80 characters that
Alan suggested may be appropriate for the body of the message, but not for
the Subject line which is invariably shorter.

I think that as long as common sense prevails we should be able to nail this
one to most participants satisfaction.

PS. On the other hand one would think that common sense ought to also help to
avoid top posting and html messages </sigh>
--
Regards,
Mick