[SpamCop-Geeks] Re: Obnoxious "spy on everyone" spammer tealpage.com

[Mike Easter]

Bob Ames wrote:
> I'm just unhappy (my recent two "it's just sad" postings here,
> plus this one :-) ) about the stupid supposedly modern browsers
> ignoring references, which prevents effectively changing
> Subject: lines but maintaining the thread.

I didn't get involved in that conversation because my point of view
didn't 'fit' or help anything.

My newsagent handles the References line OK or 'satisfactorily'
permitting me to use a function called 'Group Messages by
Conversation' -- but I don't use it.  I have my 'own little way' of
doing things and 99% of the time I prefer to not group messages by
conversation -- whereas most people prefer to configure their
newsreaders to read by thread and so then when one of these
conversations start, everyone starts telling me what I should be doing.

In a group like this, in which there is 'very little' going on, I sort
by date, with the most recent date at the top.  [I most often read
things going from bottom to top, rather than the other way.]  When I
popped in here this morning, your post was the only one in this thead
and it was sitting at the top and I opened it and am replying to it.
There is another thread going on in here which I am not currently
reading, 'Good disk checking tool', and presently there are about 5
messages in that thread which I haven't read, but I've read the first 9.

Later, maybe tonight or tomorrow, I may decide to read that
thread.again.  When I do, I will configure my newsagent to sort by
/subject/, and that will result in the items in the thread being
secondarily sorted by date, again with the most recent at the top.  Then
I will start reading from the bottommost sorted by subject.

At no time in that scenario would I be sorting by 'thread' or
conversation, altho' I could if I wanted.  I also don't like for my
messages to be 'nested' or collapsed.  I like for all of them to be
spread out, expanded, except sometimes.

So, the collapsing sometimes and the threading sometimes, which I might
use less than 1% of the time is my preferred style.

That preferred style 'doesn't like' what I consider 'unnecessary'
subject changing.

My experience has been that most of the time when a topic drift leads to
a subject being changed that subject never keeps going.  The subject
change, while 'appropriate' from the point of view of the topic
considering that drift has occurred, ends up being 'dead'.  It would
have been better to have just let the topic drift a little within the
thread of the same subject and not worry about making a new subject,
IMO.

As you can see, I'm pro topic drift and anti subject change and anti
thread reading, so that makes me a bit of an oddball, but I don't really
want to debate it because I'm not trying to get anyone to convert to my
style of anything, and I'm not interested in hearing someone else's
opinion about why I should read by thread or why I should sort and read
going down instead of going up.

-- 
Mike Easter
kibitzer, not SC admin