[LEDE-DEV] List Prefix

[Daniel Dickinson]

On 16-05-05 01:37 PM, David Woodhouse wrote:
> On Thu, 2016-05-05 at 13:23 -0400, Daniel Dickinson wrote:
>> Basically the only people for whom your claim "it's easy to add" is
>> actually true is people for whom it's not *that* much harder to
>> remove what they don't want.
> 
> In practice though, what happens is the more technically advanced users

Not sure if I buy that, or if you mean a particular brand of technically
advanced user which I don't subscribe to.

> tend to just pay less attention to lists which have it — both because
> of the actual noise itself, and because there is also a correlation
> between lists having the tag, and a lower signal:noise ratio of the
> general content. It's almost a subconscious thing.
> 
> It's like top-posting — there is a *correlation* between it, and
> general cluelessness in what the person is trying to say anyway. So one

I may figure a top-poster is a noob, but I don't automatically ignore
things from noobs, because I remember I was a noob once, and in many
communities, if I joined, I'd be a noob again, so I don't knee jerk
ignore emails.  I also don't knee jerk ignore badly written email,
because when I'm (e.g.) in a hurry, flustered, or distracted, I also
write horrible mails, but that doesn't necessarily mean there isn't a
point worth reading.

Of course, nowadays, I also only subscribe to lists where I actually
care enough to read every email.  If most of the messages on a list I
don't care about I will ditch the list, unless there is some overriding
consideration that makes me feel I need to at least skim it.

> is just less inclined to read an email when it's top-posted. Or HTML.
> And one is less inclined to spend time looking at a mailing list which
> obscures its messages with redundant information in the list tags.

Perhaps, or perhaps that's only for people who subscribe to more lists
than they actually read much.  Don't know, don't have data, but
personally a few years ago I cut out the lists I didn't care enough
about to really pay attention to.

Regards,

Daniel