On Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:56:59 -0400, John Dorsey
I already filter on something else. I proposed adding the prefix for two reasons: (1) I file all my haskell-related lists into the same box, and the prefix is handy for quickly telling which one I'm reading. This can make the difference between, say, suggesting unsafePerformIO (in the cafe) or a brief explanation of IO (on this list). And (2) for conistency with [Haskell] and [Haskell-cafe].
I see your point: You would appreciate being able to use "[Haskell-begin] unsafePerformIO" vs. "[Haskell-cafe] unsafePerformIO" to differentiate between a brief explanation of IO on Haskell-Beginners vs. suggesting unsafePerformIO on Haskell-Cafe. That actually is a valid point, and could prove useful at times. Apart from just consistency with "[Haskell]" and "[Haskell-cafe]" in the prefix for the subject lines of Haskell and Haskell-Cafe, it seems that a prefix would be useful in ensuring consistency in having this mailing list referred to as "Haskell-Beginners," and not just "Beginners," by new members. Otherwise, the fact that the e-mail address is beginners@haskell.org, and not haskell-beginners@haskell.org, could create confusion. New members would probably start saying "Haskell" vs. "Haskell-Cafe" vs. "Beginners," leading to further inconsistencies in the proper names. Eventually, most people would just start calling this list "Beginners" because the name is shorter, and the name "Haskell-Beginners" would become mostly forgotten. However, if the prefix referred to the proper name of the list in every message, this confusion could be minimized.
It's not important to me. Sounds like the majority are for no prefix.
Nonetheless, you had a valid point, and many users had stated that as long as the prefix was short, the presence or absence of the prefix did not really matter to them. Ideally, my personal preference would be to be completely consistent with [Haskell] and [Haskell-cafe], and change the prefix to [Haskell-beginners], but it seems that then many readers would believe this prefix to be too long and make the subject line hard to read. For the sake of argument, let's experiment: [Haskell-begin] unsafePerformIO [Haskell-beginners] unsafePerformIO Now, let's try a longer example: [Haskell-begin] beginners mailing list should be beginner's choice [Haskell-beginners] beginners mailing list should be beginner's choice Right now, in my Yahoo! Mail Haskell-Cafe folder, a typical truncated long subject-line message reads as follows: [Haskell-cafe] ghc 6.8.3 build error with __DISCARD__ linking problem, please hel That's 81 characters. Right now, the longest example that I can find of a subject line in Haskell-Beginners is the following: [Haskell-begin] Re: [Haskell-cafe] Trouble with non-exhaustive patterns That's 71 characters, using "[Haskell-begin]." If we changed "[Haskell-begin]" to "[Haskell-beginners]," that would add 4 characters, increasing the length to 75. That's still below 81. Here's a comparison: [Haskell-begin] Re: [Haskell-cafe] Trouble with non-exhaustive patterns [Haskell-beginners] Re: [Haskell-cafe] Trouble with non-exhaustive patterns Given that some mailing lists, such as plt-announce, already get by using prefixes of similar length (in their case, "[PLT announcement]," I think that in practice, after a few weeks, most readers would probably unconsciously just ignore the prefix and read the rest, and new readers would be able to read "[Haskell]" vs. "[Haskell-cafe]" vs. "[Haskell-beginners]" for consistency (although some users would probably complain at first). Just for comparison, here are some examples of what is happening with the subject lines in plt-announce: [PLT announcement] PLT Scheme v4.0 [PLT announcement] PLT Scheme v4.0.2 Let's compare what would happen with similar typical subject lines with "[Haskell-begin]" vs. "[Haskell-beginners]": [Haskell-begin] Exercises for beginners and Natural Tansformations [Haskell-beginners] Exercises for beginners and Natural Tansformations What do you think? Opinions, comment? You decide. -- Benjamin L. Russell