Re: off-topic discussions

From: William J Poser (wjposer@ldc.upenn.edu)
Date: Sun Jan 17 2010 - 14:41:48 CST

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    Philip Chastney wrote:
    >but how do you ensure that the subject line continues to reflect the drift
    >in the content?

    Of course, you can't be entirely sure that the content of a message
    corresponds to the subject header, but if list members accept the convention
    that subject headers should be changed to reflect drift in discussions
    then most of the time most people probably will change them as necessary
    out of some combination of altruism, self-interest, and social pressure.

    This reminds me of the position that commenting is not worthwhile because
    the code may not correspond to the comments. Metadata is useful, but
    people have to agree to keep it accurate.

    Bill



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