Re: [Pan-users] Mark all subscribed groups read?

[Duncan]

Travis posted on Fri, 22 Jul 2011 10:59:43 -0700 as excerpted:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robert Kochem Sent: Friday, July 22, 2011 10:47 AM To:
> address@hidden Subject: Re:
> [Pan-users] Mark all subscribed groups read?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> BTW: Travis could you please change change the way you are answering
> posts? There is no way to distinguish between the text you are replying
> and the text you are writing. Or if you see it from a different
> perspective one could say that you are posting empty messages with
> altered reply text...
> **********************************************************************
> It isn't me it is Windows Live Mail.
> **********************************************************************

FWIW...

I haven't bugged you about it since I know that, and bugging you wouldn't 
help you or me.  I also know you've worked some on switching to something 
else tho I'm not sure what the current results are/were on that.  And MS 
users of something like pan certainly get my respect as that's not the 
easiest platform to use pan on nor is this list exactly the friendliest 
environment for anything MS, alto at least personally I try not to take 
out my feelings on MS on the poor MS users.

However, now that the subject has come up...

If you would simply use a separator of some sort (as you did above), 
while the quote level highlighting still shows it as the same level, at 
least there's /some/ visual distinction.

Personally, given the "---original message---" (non-literally quoted to 
avoid confusion) type distinction WLM already includes, I'd probably make 
the reply marker similar, but with reply instead: "---reply message---".

Or, use a line of >>>>>>>>>>, since key auto-repeat should make that 
easy, and pan, etc, will probably see that as a quote level and at least 
color that line, make it easy to pick out.

Another alternative would be to consider using pan itself, thru gmane.org 
using its list2news gateway, to follow the list, thereby avoiding WLM for 
it and possibly for other lists you may have.  A number of list regulars 
(including me) do that, tho admittedly, if you think pan might break and 
you'd need to use the list to get answers on fixing it, that would kind 
of leave you between a rock and a hard place.  However, do note that "in 
extremis", it's possible to use the gmane web interface to read and send 
messages, and there have been occasions where I've had to do just that, 
so even if you do use pan for reading/replying to the list normally, if 
pan breaks, it's possible to use the gmane web interface temporarily.

Another variant on the web interface idea would be using gmail (or yahoo 
mail or whatever, gmail just seems to have the mindshare).  Actually, 
there's a lot of people that don't trust gmail for their private mail 
that still use it for mailing lists, since presumably google can already 
index mailing lists thru the various public web archives if they want, 
anyway.  I might be one of them since that rather mirrors my own thinking 
on the privacy side of things, but I much prefer a news interface to a 
web interface for lists, and gmane is a near-perfect solution for me.  
(The other thing about gmail is that I see a lot of webmail users, gmail 
and otherwise, who have difficulty remembering to send plain text only, 
and regulars here know how unpopular that is with other regulars, most 
definitely including me.  I believe that most webmail including gmail can 
be set to plain text only mode, but I've been told that some of them 
don't make it the easiest thing in the world and that they force you to 
do it for each message.  YMMV.)

So there are alternatives, from continuing to use WLM for the list and 
simply using a >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> or ************ or ----reply message---- 
type delimiter, to using gmane for the list I and others already do, to 
using gmail or something else for the list.  Any of them would lessen the 
level of difficulty and frustration for your readers, trying to tell your 
replies from what they're a reply to.  Hopefully that helps.  But 
regardless, at least for me, while the current situation is a frustration 
to untangle your reply from the original quote, I'd a whole lot rather 
deal with that, at least for the relatively short replies you do (imagine 
trying to do it with interleaved quote/reply message of the length I often
write!!), than try to cope with HTML messages.  So /please/ don't start 
sending /those/, whatever solution you try! =8^0

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman