READ ME: When replying to users digest...

Patrick O'Callaghan pocallaghan at gmail.com
Wed Mar 21 13:01:13 UTC 2012


On Wed, 2012-03-21 at 11:48 +0000, Phil Dobbin wrote:
> Cameron Simpson <cs at zip.com.au>
> Date:
> 21/03/2012 00:24
> To:
> Community support for Fedora users <users at lists.fedoraproject.org>
> 
> > On 21Mar2012 00:49, suvayu ali <fatkasuvayu+linux at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> | Well from my experience when I subscribed to this list as new user, I
> | started with the digest (with gmail) intending to only passively read
> | rather than respond. But when I felt I had responses to contribute, I
> | switched from a digest to regular emails.
> 
> > I find digests difficult to read. (RISKS aside, I guess). With
> > regular email the threads are nicely grouped on my screen, the
> > whole thread history is there for perusal or discarding, etc. With
> > a digest I get ungrouped snapshots of everything. Like a newspaper,
> > in fact:-(
> 
> As someone who at present reads this list on digest (as you can
> probably tell by my cut & paste job in attempt to make it more
> legible), I use use digest-mode for several lists to control the
> number of messages each day (I'm subscribed to about thirty mailing
> lists out of necessity).

Actually I can tell because it's not collated with the rest of this
thread, which was the main point I was trying to make.

> Digest mode is perfectly acceptable for use when searching for
> relevant topics but a bore when replying. Mailing list software varies
> in its capabilities on the response side of things so I always use cut
> & paste. Believe me, the version of the response I see on the digest
> is far worse than someone who is subscribed for regular delivery ;-)

Sounds like an argument for not using digests. Any decent mail client
can search over multiple messages, so what's the point?

poc



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