Re: making bootup fsck more user-friendly

[David <wizzardx@gmail.com>]

On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 3:04 PM, Chris Bannister
<mockingbird@earthlight.co.nz> wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 14, 2008 at 05:59:01PM +0200, David wrote:

[...]

>
> Consider: person a replies to part of your reply, so they trim out what
> is not relevant. person b replies to part of your reply, so they trim
> out what is not relevant. Already the messages are starting to separate,
> possibly returning to the state that was existing before you
> concatenated them but with the threads in disarray.

You make some good points, but I think that my case is a reasonable exception.

(also, repliers will be cutting out unrelated lines with either format)

As the original poster, most of the replies are to my original (and
follow-up) posts. For cases where I am replying to many replies (to my
original post) at once, the natural (easier for me to write, and
others to read) format seems to be 1 mail. That one mail makes my
follow-up more readable, because:

1) My reply is to to the thread as a whole, rather than to specific
people on the thread.

2) 1, well-composed mail on one subject is (in my opinion) easier to
read than many smaller mails. In the longer mail you can establish
some context, and refer to that context in your replies.

3) Receiving 5 mails from 1 person in succession on the same subject
is a bit annoying :-)

I agree with you, that in these cases, putting replies in 1 mail is bad form:

1) Mails in different sub-threads (defined as threads where there is
discussion amongst other people than myself and 1 other person).

2) Replying specifically to 1 person (To: header), but including my
replies to other people

3) When readers are only interested in specific replies (maybe to
their message), but my mails have other people's messages in it.

I wouldn't for example reply to Henrique's XFS sub-thread along with
my other replies, because the topic has changed, and other people have
been replying to him on that sub-thread.

Would it be better that instead of in this format:

    Hi list <bla bla>

    On 123, ABC said:
    > On 456, David said
    > ABC's reply

    My reply bla bla

    On 456, XYZ said:
    > On 456, David said
    > XYZ's reply

    My reply bla bla

    ... more replies ...

I write it like this?

    Hi again list. <bla bla>

    Ealier posters suggested that <description>. I have <problem>

    Harry suggested to <description>. This is fine, but <description>
    would work better for me, because of <reason>.

    ... more replies ...

    Thanks for the replies. I'm now going to try <description> and
    will get back to the list later.

Or, should I in every case split it into separate mails? Like this:

    ---mail 1---
        On 123 John said
        > On 123 David said:
        > ...[on topic A]
        > [John's reply]

        Thanks, but I have a problem with this, because <xyz>. I will
        try <abc> instead. I will describe this further in my reply
        to Paul.

    ---mail 2---
        On 123 Paul said
        > On 123 David said:
        > ...[Also on topic A]
        > [Paul's reply]

        This is reasonable, but I want to mention <abc> too. See also
        my ealier reply to John.

    ... 3 more mails from me...

David.