From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([69.77.167.62] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1KKcB2-0000yc-Tv for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Sun, 20 Jul 2008 16:54:29 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 75664E04D8; Sun, 20 Jul 2008 16:54:27 +0000 (UTC) Received: from ik-out-1112.google.com (ik-out-1112.google.com [66.249.90.182]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1B18DE04D8 for ; Sun, 20 Jul 2008 16:54:27 +0000 (UTC) Received: by ik-out-1112.google.com with SMTP id c21so678958ika.2 for ; Sun, 20 Jul 2008 09:54:26 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:from:reply-to:to:subject:date :user-agent:references:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type :content-transfer-encoding:message-id; bh=310KjxglniQkDavfgSLe0YlVVU+EbXZKNOyfGyvAmyw=; b=mHwiqunPQKLIiPFRmCm9J+c5VdXte7yr51/BgQ0/1DiSjVY11W03FryxtxWfDR1HDq jo1rrIu82Wk90p2qCu0ACnwMiVLv22gybt75UUjT8Z9daI2AwCLIANqwQvMRhjWl7Q6g G979Wpeseq2iEakP1ltjUmze4qzQxRNTpHcjk= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=from:reply-to:to:subject:date:user-agent:references:in-reply-to :mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:message-id; b=XIjANGaqSWfN0XwVu8jjp2ywSHfq6xfv4P7urCgwr8u0ObFIpjtzCFdbYwQkk3l8yU EbWmLv9vruXjU7Wd1C2RXnTuhRKLF6VU8o4on40v8VnDHDntZFvUgyPZuE7bsTd3b5O9 Ux9coE6TaxeGleu38kj4mogWG+ac3ZzTFtdQo= Received: by 10.210.65.17 with SMTP id n17mr2323012eba.188.1216572866360; Sun, 20 Jul 2008 09:54:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from lappy.study ( [212.159.46.48]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id f13sm4304484gvd.2.2008.07.20.09.54.24 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Sun, 20 Jul 2008 09:54:25 -0700 (PDT) From: Mick To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] proper subject lines Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 17:54:09 +0100 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.9 References: <875732.34479.qm@web31706.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <200807141911.05478.alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> <20080714181415.GA31421@princeton.edu> In-Reply-To: <20080714181415.GA31421@princeton.edu> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="nextPart608287454.RjS3KuY1pZ"; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; micalg=pgp-sha1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <200807201754.22601.michaelkintzios@gmail.com> X-Archives-Salt: 849aadb5-3d8e-4267-9124-df321e8edf3a X-Archives-Hash: df067355d20222192960db3fddf1c0d9 --nextPart608287454.RjS3KuY1pZ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline On Monday 14 July 2008, Willie Wong wrote: > On Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 07:11:05PM +0200, Penguin Lover Alan McKinnon=20 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] ") =3D 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 =3D 26. > > Oh wait, your question may incite a big discussion with 6 levels of > replies: > > 26 - 6 * strlen("Re: ") =3D 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= =20 original on this reply). There is indeed a need to write meaningful Subjec= t=20 lines and keep them as short as possible. However, the 80 characters that= =20 Alan suggested may be appropriate for the body of the message, but not for= =20 the Subject line which is invariably shorter. I think that as long as common sense prevails we should be able to nail thi= s=20 one to most participants satisfaction. PS. On the other hand one would think that common sense ought to also help = to=20 avoid top posting and html messages =2D-=20 Regards, Mick --nextPart608287454.RjS3KuY1pZ Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc Content-Description: This is a digitally signed message part. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEABECAAYFAkiDbb4ACgkQ5Fp0QerLYPcLQACgtuI0hP+EhFWhZ7JvQ/xIn8ft 5ZwAoIyynuE7Rms4Oe8XDN8GWN4++nL7 =HJ14 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --nextPart608287454.RjS3KuY1pZ--