on writing subject lines (Was: Re: Recent spam on comp.lang.c)

From	Julieta Shem <jshem@yaxenu.org>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.c, comp.misc
Subject	on writing subject lines (Was: Re: Recent spam on comp.lang.c)
Date	2023-12-03 13:01 -0300
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<87v89fwa07.fsf_-_@yaxenu.org> (permalink)
References	(1 earlier) <3607596852@f172.n1.z21.fsxnet> <udcl13$30q7k$1@dont-email.me> <uddvnt$3a9si$1@dont-email.me> <ude6v5$3av40$2@dont-email.me> <fVDKthnhfJ8657wgg@bongo-ra.co>

Cross-posted to 2 groups.

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Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> writes:

[...]

> Finally (for  comp.lang.c  only) , I find even more annoying than the spam
> the fact that people don't choose an appropriate  Subject:  for their posts.
> Naming a thread  "bart again (UCX64)"  is a poor choice anyway but it
> contains a long subthread on whether the closing brace of a function is
> reachable and whether a compiler should give a warning. It would certainly
> help if posts relevant to this reflected it in the  Subject: .

[...]

One difficulty there is that a good subject requires a summary of the
content, a hard problem that schools have been failing to solve.
Notice, too, that lay people write the subject first and the message,
second, which is roughly the same as writing out the number first and
doing the arithmetic later.  

So we can sort of blame that partly on the user interfaces.  Somehow,
the subject line should come as a last step.  That might be one of the
reasons lay people love the new proprietary software for conversations
--- they don't ask them to solve hard problems.  On the contrary: they
force them not to solve them.  (You don't have much to say?  No problem:
we won't let you write more than n characters anyway.)

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on writing subject lines (Was: Re: Recent spam on comp.lang.c) Julieta Shem <jshem@yaxenu.org> - 2023-12-03 13:01 -0300
  Re: on writing subject lines (Was: Re: Recent spam on comp.lang.c) Lew Pitcher <lew.pitcher@digitalfreehold.ca> - 2023-12-03 16:39 +0000
    Re: on writing subject lines Julieta Shem <jshem@yaxenu.org> - 2023-12-03 14:05 -0300
    Re: on writing subject lines (Was: Re: Recent spam on comp.lang.c) candycanearter07 <no@thanks.net> - 2023-12-03 14:42 -0600
      Re: on writing subject lines (Was: Re: Recent spam on comp.lang.c) kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) - 2023-12-04 23:46 +0000
        Re: on writing subject lines (Was: Re: Recent spam on comp.lang.c) Julieta Shem <jshem@yaxenu.org> - 2023-12-05 14:53 -0300
          Re: on writing subject lines Julieta Shem <jshem@yaxenu.org> - 2023-12-05 15:25 -0300
            Re: on writing subject lines scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2023-12-05 19:33 +0000
  Re: on writing subject lines (Was: Re: Recent spam on comp.lang.c) Vir Campestris <vir.campestris@invalid.invalid> - 2023-12-03 21:29 +0000
    Re: on writing subject lines Julieta Shem <jshem@yaxenu.org> - 2023-12-04 20:34 -0300
      Re: on writing subject lines Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> - 2023-12-05 14:18 -0600
        Re: on writing subject lines Julieta Shem <jshem@yaxenu.org> - 2023-12-05 18:22 -0300
          Re: on writing subject lines scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2023-12-05 21:36 +0000
            Re: on writing subject lines Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> - 2023-12-05 15:46 -0600
          Re: on writing subject lines Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> - 2023-12-05 15:45 -0600
            Re: on writing subject lines Julieta Shem <jshem@yaxenu.org> - 2023-12-05 19:10 -0300
          Re: on writing subject lines Dan Purgert <dan@djph.net> - 2023-12-05 21:45 +0000
          Re: on writing subject lines Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2023-12-05 14:40 -0800
          Re: on writing subject lines Jan van den Broek <balglaas@dds.nl> - 2023-12-06 06:54 +0000

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