Etiquette for changing the subject line (was Re: TWs and Core Competencies (long))

[doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com]

On Sun, 23 Dec 2007 16:28:24 -0600, in bit.listserv.techwr-l you
wrote:

>>> A similar situation exists with BA; TWs seem to be claiming BA skills to
>augment whatever other skills they list. That is ludicrous. A BA is
>primarily a position interfacing with upper management, secondarily with IT
>chiefs, and almost never with the lowly developers and documentation
>producers. The skill sets are totally different, yet many TWs seem to
>include BA in their skill list as a matter of course.
> 
>
>Sorry, I had to change the Subject as the original email just had "RE:
>TECHWR-L Digest, Vol 26, Issue 21" as the subject.


Geez, great instincts, jobs!  The re-focused subject line is
appreciated, and apology accepted.  Now allow me to reciprocate with a
request for further deference, which you should feel free to dismiss.

I'm sending this to the list instead of privately because, in the age
of webmail, a lot of list subscribers may not know what threaded email
is. Maybe someone will appreciate the following tip. 

When you change the subject line, you can better accomodate those of
us who use threaded mail readers by Replying to the original message,
and then editing the subject line, rather than starting a new thread
with a new subject.  

If you do this for me, then my email program can detect your message
as a part of the converation begun by the original poster, and group
it accordingly as a follow-up to the original post. 

If you don't do this, I get two top level posts sorted only by their
timestamps.  Even if you create a new thread and give it the exact
same subject line as the original, they won't get threaded by my
reader, they'll be sorted as if they were unrelated.

I hope that mentioning these things won't aggravate those techwhirlers
who know about threaded mail readers but do not bother to stick their
responses into the original threads.  I expect they have their reasons
for not doing so.

Thanks for your consideration, and for re-engineering bad subject
lines. :-)


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