Disabling the automatic population of "re:" in comment subjects.

[waterbends]

Title:
Disabling the automatic population of "re:" in comment subjects.

Area:
comments

Summary:
Dreamwidth is a site heavily utilized by the online RP community. The "re:" that populates automatically in subject headers can be really annoying, and we would love the chance to disable them!

Description:
Is there any sort of option for us to turn off the automatic "re:" that appears in subject headers? If not -- is it possible at all to create that option for us?

Take a look at the RP-based post here: http://adstringendum.dreamwidth.org/414634.html

Every single one of the almost 300 comment replies has had to manually remove the "re:" that automatically populates in the subject header, and it's a pain in the butt to have to do it when you're replying via phone. It gets really, really tedious, especially when you're churning out dozens of tags in a sitting.. and the header itself is necessary, because the mode of communication is something that's important to keep track of. Having a way to disable that would be just plain AWESOME!

Thank you so much.

Poll #11270 Disabling the automatic population of "re:" in comment subjects.

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 116

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
66 (56.9%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
4 (3.4%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
23 (19.8%)

(I have no opinion)
23 (19.8%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[swaldman]

This would be an extra option, of course, but... thinking about it, is the Re: necessary for anybody, or should we just get rid of it? I'm not sure of the answer, just raising the question - what purpose does the Re: serve?

[subluxate]

I like it. Email threads it, and it tells me immediately that it's regarding a specific thread.

[swaldman]

But would any of that functionality be lost if the subject was autofilled with "Old Subject" rather than "Re: Old Subject"?

Unless I misunderstand the OP, I don't think anybody is proposing removing the autofill completely, just the leading "Re:".

[subluxate]

I know, but I like the leading "Re:". It's like getting an email that's "Re: Old Subject".

[arethinn]

But would any of that functionality be lost if the subject was autofilled with "Old Subject" rather than "Re: Old Subject"?

Some email clients look for Re:.

(Personally I have never been a fan of comment subjects at all, because if someone fills it in, it overrides the default email notification subject that tells me whether it was a reply to one of my comments or just to A comment in a thread I am tracking. I'm probably the only one, heh.)

[ciaan]

Putting re: on makes it look a reply. Using my subject line as the subject of your comment reply is like, why are you copying me?

[inthetatras]

It can come in handy in posts where the subject lines are used in top-level comments for organization reasons, so that someone looking at the collapsed threads can tell at a glance what's there. (Sometimes the tiering of threads can make that difficult.)

I'm not a big fan of the "re:", but I feel that it has enough purpose that it should not be got rid of. An option to turn it off for a journal or comm, though, that would be of interest.

[swaldman]

But would any of that functionality be lost if the subject was autofilled with "Old Subject" rather than "Re: Old Subject"?

Unless I misunderstand the OP, I don't think anybody is proposing removing the autofill completely, just the leading "Re:".

(sorry for double-posting - I am interested to get responses from both threads, it's always good to learn about how other people use DW!)

[kaberett]

Yes: for long collapsed threads, particularly threads where the subject is changed partway through, having the "Re:" leading makes it much easier to glance through and spot the subject change (because there suddenly isn't a "Re:" any more).

[swaldman]

Fair point.

[inthetatras]

kaberett said the main point I was going to. There's also the fact that having the "re:" in there can be useful for email notifs, as the subject of a comment is also the subject of an email notif for the same comment. I personally do find it useful at times, in situations other than the post that the OP linked to. I use Trillian for a chat client which allows me to get little pop-up windows in the corner of my screen showing the subject and sender of emails as I receive them. The subject change comes in important there.

[justhuman]

I like the option to make it journal configuration.

[the_shoshanna]

I like having the "Re:", because it makes comments (and email notifications) both thread like email and just plain look like email, and I already manage enough different systems of structuring information; I like the consistency. Also, in non-RP communities I follow that have long comment threads, the "Re:" does make it easier for me to scan collapsed comments for items of interest.

I'm not sure how removing the "Re:" would make things much easier for RPers? I don't roleplay myself, so I don't know what I'm missing, but looking at the entry you linked to, it looks as though players could just leave the "Re:" there and ignore it, while making whatever other changes they're already making to the subject line.

I get that that would still be kind of visually annoying (and remove four characters from your subject lines' length limits), so really what I'm saying here amounts to "I'd rather you were annoyed than me," I guess? I mean, I'm not going to pitch a fit if the change is made, or anything. I suspect that DW will not want to add another option -- excess options are generally a bad idea, though I can't at this moment point to Denise's explanation of why -- so I guess it comes down to, which behavior will annoy fewer people and annoy them less? Which is what polls are meant to investigate...

[inthetatras]

looking at the entry you linked to, it looks as though players could just leave the "Re:" there and ignore it, while making whatever other changes they're already making to the subject line.

I think the thing is that they would vastly prefer to remove the "re:". hence the auto "re:" in the subject of their replies gets annoying. I've been in games like that one, where you constantly are supposed to list the type of comment (action, text, voice, video, etc.) in the subject. However, I think that it's sort of their own mess, and I've always been the type to do "video until noted otherwise" and just use blank subjects from then on because I'd rather not bother with the "re:".

Denise's explanation about excess options being a bad idea was decision fatigue, if I recall correctly.

I could get behind a sticky button.

[erik]

I'm picturing a button between the "Subject:" label and the text input box that says "Re:" (with some explanatory hovertext). click it, and when the comment is posted it will have the "Re:" attached to the title. And it saves state, so it will just keep doing whatever you did last until you change it again.

I like "Re:", so if this method is implemented I'd advocate for the starting state to be clicked (yes insert "Re:").

[inthetatras]

I could get behind this, as well.

[deborah]

For what it's worth, I went to go look at the e-mail RFCs; this isn't technically an e-mail issue but these do get sent out by e-mail and get treated as e-mail replies. I thought the "Re:" was technically part of the RFC but RFC 2822 says

When used in a reply, the field body MAY start with the string "Re: " (from the Latin "res", in the matter of) followed by the contents of the "Subject:" field body of the original message.
If this is done, only one instance of the literal string "Re: " ought to be used since use of other strings or more than one instance can lead to undesirable consequences.

E-mail client threading should work properly even without that string. Threading in any reasonable e-mail client relies on the In-Reply-To and References, which we do correctly set, e.g. in one e-mail in my inbox

References: <entry-37793-65446@dreamwidth.org<
In-Reply-To: <entry-37793-65446@dreamwidth.org>

That being said, if we do decide to hide it in the user interface, I still think we should include in the subject line of the e-mails. Changing expected e-mail behavior is not something that makes people happy.

[400million]

I don't particularly like the Re: when I'm RPing but outside of that context, I like having it read like an e-mail when it hits my inbox.

In an RP context, I just delete the title once we've established what kind of thread it is-- if it changes, then change it and delete it after that. I mean, it's not as if you're likely to forget the format of the replies after a few comments and it sounds like a lot of work to implement something like an option or a tickybox just so RPers won't have to remove 4 characters.

If I'm threading with someone who always deletes the Re: then I just delete the header-- no one's ever put it back on me before like "No I absolutely must relabel this thread despite the common knowledge that we both share from glancing upthread."

I mean I play at a game where most people don't bother removing the Re: anyway and we have literally had no problems with it. That I know of.

[lightnings]

I think it would depend on how annoying an option would be to code in, but I think if it's any more than a little bit of a hassle, I'm at the same game as mentioned right above me and we generally just never bother deleting the re: and I don't think anyone at the game cares.

[400million]

Yeah, this!!

If it's no problem and the DW folks think it's a good idea (seriously you guys have a lot of work already), then I think it would be nice! But it's never been a problem for me and I don't think it's enough of one to call for a big code-mining operation. (There are super easy workarounds.)