Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site dciem.UUCP
Path: utzoo!dciem!ntt
From: ntt@dciem.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: "Subject:" and many follow-ups (2nd posting)
Message-ID: <592@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 3-Jan-84 19:26:06 EST
Article-I.D.: dciem.592
Posted: Tue Jan  3 19:26:06 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 3-Jan-84 20:54:10 EST
Organization: NTT Systems Inc., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 39

When a message generates a long chain of follow-ups, the subject lines often
become uninformative.  You might see, for instance, user A posting an item
with a subject of "Abortion is murder".  User B disagrees and posts an item
whose automatic subject is "Re: Abortion is murder".  User A enters a follow-up
to this, subject "Re: Abortion is murder", and now which item is user C's
"Re: Abortion is murder" a follow-up to, and what is C's point of view?

The better (more specific) the original subject line, the LESS likely it is
to be applicable to the follow-ups.  

I therefore propose a new header field: aspect.
Postnews would prompt for both a subject and an aspect, and readnews, when
generating a follow-up, would retain the subject but prompt for a new aspect.
By effectively lengthening the subject field to two lines, this would also
perhaps lead to longer and more informative subjects.  By making the aspect
optional, compatibility with existing net software is retained.  (I'm not
sure "aspect" is the best name, by the way, but it took me a couple of days
to think of it after I had the idea.)

So we might now see A posting
	Subject: Abortion
	Aspect: Murder, that's what it is!
And B says
	Subject: Re: Abortion
	Aspect: pro-choice
And A says
	Subject: Re: Abortion
	Aspect: A's ramblings notwithstanding, it's still murder
And when C says
	Subject: Re: Abortion
	Aspect: B doesn't know how to spell
Then we know what the new message is about.

I think the aspect would be very useful in all discussions where follow-ups
proliferate.  What do the net gurus and others think?

(Note: the example subject is just that, an example.  No opinion is expressed.)

Mark Brader, NTT Systems Inc.