Re: various nnml questions, many about cross-posted mail messages

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@ifi.uio.no>]

jbw@cs.bu.edu (Joe Wells) writes:

> I also believe that a newsreader, to the greatest extent practically
> possible, should treat a message cross posted to several groups as a
> single entity.  When I receive a message that gets put in groups A, B, and
> C, I do not want it to make a difference in which group I deal with the
> message first.  If, while in group B, I read the message, tick it, and
> reply to it, I expect it to be annotated with "!A".  If a week later I am
> viewing the same message in group C, I want to see the same annotation
> there too.

I don't agree.  I feel that the Xref header should be used for one
thing and one thing only -- it should ensure that a reader never has
to read a crossposted article more than once.  That's all.

> First, I disagree about the usefulness of Xref.  Second, the lack of mark
> propagation in Gnus prevents achieving the goal of not reading articles
> more than once.  Suppose, while in group A, I read an article which was
> cross posted to group B and then I tick the article.  Then I go to group
> B.  I will see the same article and it will be unmarked (not marked as
> read).  Unless I am very careful, I will end up reading it again.

No, if you tick the article in group A it will be marked as read in
group B.  So you'll never see it in group B.

>    > 4. Question: How do people keep track of whether they have edited a
>    >    message or forwarded it?
> 
>    They have rilly good memories?
> 
> I asked this question because this is one of the features of VM which I
> like quite a bit.

Well, I could add new secondary marks for forwarding and editing, but
is it really something we need?  Well, perhaps it would be nice.  I've
added it to the Red Gnus todo list.  (Along with World Peace,
Happiness For Everybody, and Free Word For XEmacs.  :-)

(We need more smileys.  We should really have O:-) and :-=, for
instance.  Anybody feel up to going through that mam(m)ooth list of
smileys and drawing them all?  :-)  Shouldn't be much work.  :-O.)

-- 
  "Yes.  The journey through the human heart 
     would have to wait until some other time."