[recomposingUNC] threadjacking considered harmful

[Tom Roche]

https://lists.resist.ca/pipermail/recomposingunc/2010-November/000003.html
>> Only downside of resist.ca's list I can see is, they didn't integrate
>> search with their pipermail,

I.e. the software that implements their mail archive, which allows one
to browse the contents of previous posts.

>> which restricts archive search. (I'll ask about that, but for now,
>> please resist the urge to threadjack

For a general definition, see
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/threadjacking

For a specific definition:

https://lists.resist.ca/pipermail/recomposingunc/2010-November/000004.html
> The only way I can see in which Laurel's post (see link above) was
> inappropriate, was, it threadjacked. I.e. Laurel's post replied to a
> previous one

> https://lists.resist.ca/pipermail/recomposingunc/2010-November/000001.html

> using the same subject ("welcome!"), despite in fact being about
> something completely different.

Why is threadjacking bad? 

1 It makes finding messages harder. Suppose days, weeks, months later
  you find yourself wanting to find an old message. If you've got a mail
  tool that does search (e.g. gmail), you can search on things that you
  know about the post (e.g. who it was from, text from the message), but
  that will often return lots of results. But you're SOL if you deleted
  the message, at which point you need to turn to the list archives, if
  there is one. (Thanks resist.ca!) In either case, you will eventually
  face a list of links to posts, with that list showing "Date:",
  "From:", and "Subject:" and not much else. When viewing search
  results, it *really* helps to see a "Subject:" that actually resembles
  the actual content of the message.

2 It undermines how one typically decides whether or not to read a
  message. We probably all have too much email (apologies about this
  addition, but hygeine is important), and we decide whether or not to
  read something based largely on (again) "Date:", "From:", and
  "Subject:" since that's usually most of what our email tool shows us
  about what's in our inbox. When viewing one's inbox (wait for it ...)
  it *really* helps to see a "Subject:" that actually resembles the
  actual content of the message.

Can threadjacking be easily avoided? Yes: if you reply to a message, but
the content of your message is very different to that of the original
message, or at least very different to the Subject of the message to
which you're nominally replying, use your mail tool to change the
Subject. I.e. (for most mail tools) just put the cursor in the text box
next to "Subject:", and change the contents. It's easy!

</rant>, Tom Roche <Tom_Roche at pobox.com>