Change subject line of emails to make threading even better

[cesy]

Title:
Change subject line of emails to make threading even better

Area:
notifications

Summary:
Thread top-level comments and lower-level replies together, e.g. when tracking an entry. So instead of getting two different threads in Gmail for each entry, you just have one, with the top-level and reply comments in order, instead of spread across two conversations.

Description:
I just noticed something with the new threading - because "Reply to an entry" and "Reply to a comment" have different subject lines, they get treated as differerent conversations, even if the comment is on that entry. So if you're tracking, say, a news post, the top-level comments will be in a different conversation from the replies to those comments, which isn't ideal.

I'd personally prefer it to just have the subject of the entry...

Reply to "Some entry" [dw-biz #1053]...

No matter why -- i.e., get rid of "Edited reply to your comment", "Reply to your comment", "Reply to your post", etc. in the subject line - leave the content of the email as it is, so you know who said what, but just collapse the subjects so you get the whole conversation in one email thread.

Poll #1045 Change subject line of emails to make threading even better

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 35

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
6 (17.1%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
1 (2.9%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
18 (51.4%)

(I have no opinion)
9 (25.7%)

(Other: please comment)
1 (2.9%)

Comments

[denise]

Personally, I don't think we should be making extensive changes to cater to the filtering of a single email provider, especially when those changes would have the action of removing meaningful information that users of another email provider (including me!) rely upon when receiving comment email.

[ninetydegrees]

I like have the three different subjects because I can delete the "Edited..." without reading them. Also, in some cases, Reply to a comment tells me the comment is a reply to someone else - it's my entry and I never commented on it - and I know I can read it later.

[yvi]

As denise said, not everybody uses GMail, and not everybody uses the GMail web interface. Some e-mail providers and e-mail programs, for example thread by both 'in-reply-to' and subject or some other combination.

Personally, I like to see the visual difference between 'someone replied to a follow-up comment I made' and 'someone replied to the entry'.

[melannen]

I want to be able to tell the difference, immediately, between a top-level reply and a reply to a comment (not least because top-level replies have the entire entry in them, and that's useful, but can also cause bandwidth issues on a slow computer.) And not everyone uses gmail!

Would setting it up as "Comment on 'some entry' #foo" for top-level and "Re: Comment on 'some entry' #foo" for replies work with gmail threading? I might be willing to go with that, maybe.

[cesy]

I think that would work, yes.

[archangelbeth]

I want to be able to tell the difference, immediately, between a top-level reply and a reply to a comment

Same. On the other hand, I can probably figure out some amount of changes, and "Re: comment..." would not bug me.

[triadruid]

I actually don't have 'no opinion', but I think the long-term solution is to encourage your email provider/program to use the common In-Reply-To threading mechanism, which DW provides and respects.

[awesome]

I don't like it because one, like other people have said, not everyone uses GMail and making Dreamwidth edit things just for GMail isn't right.

And two, I like being able to tell as I look at just the subject lines of my email, if it's a reply to an entry or comment I wrote or just replies to something I'm tracking because I don't always have time to check the tracking comments right away but want to be able to look at things directly to me. Taking that, to me, important info out of the subject line is not something I ever want.