Just curious: why digest mode?

[Serge Issakov]

The complaints about long signatures, lack of clipping, and photos are a bit foreign to me because gmail clips all that.  Well, I see the photos but they don't bother me - not in my iPhone Mail app either.

But I understand people who read this list in digest mode might find these things to be problematic.  Which raises the question... why does anyone use digest mode instead of, say, folders (or labels in gmail)?  I mean, you can set up a mail filter to send all BD email to a separate BD folder, and only look at that once a day or whatever.   Do you get something with digest mode that I'm not appreciating?

Just curious, mostly.

Serge

[Ebeling, Jr., Herman F.]

Serge,

    I have to say that I am curious about that as well.

    What I've done in Thunderbird is the same thing.  I created a filter and all of the postings to the group go into a folder named Bicycle Driving.  That is why I had made the comment about duplicate posts.  Speaking of that, why are the e-mails from the group setup so that when one clicks on reply they're replying to the author and not the group?  So that one has to click on "reply all" in order to get their reply to go to the group?

--
Herman F. Ebeling, Jr.

---

Bicycles:
2005 Specialized Hardrock MTB	2009 Giant Seek 2
Pets:
01.00.00 Normal Grey Cockatiel (Hikaru)	00.01.00 Orange Tabby (Little One)
01.00.00 Betta, Red	00.00.02 Cory Cats, Albino
00.00.?? Ghost Shrimp	00.00.03 Neon Tetras
01.02.00 Swordtail	02.10.00 Swordtail (fry)
00.00.03 Zebra’s	00.00.01 G. rosea (Kirk)
The fish are spread out over several tanks, that are setup as Walsted tanks, i.e. “natural planted” tanks.
Facebook:
Cyclists Against Carlos Bertonatti	My Facebook Page
Links:
Bike Forums	Bicycle Driving
Yahoo Groups:
Cockatiel Lovers	Cockatiels Plus

---

Live Long and Prosper

___________________           _-_
\==============_=_/  ____.---'---`---.____
             \_ \    \----._________.----/
               \ \   /  /    `-_-'
           __,--`.`-'..'-_
          /____          ||-
               `--.____,-'

[Michael Graff]

On Tue, May 8, 2012 at 3:28 PM, Ebeling, Jr., Herman F. <HFEbe...@lycos.com> wrote:

why are the e-mails from the group setup so that when one clicks on reply they're replying to the author and not the group?  So that one has to click on "reply all" in order to get their reply to go to the group?

That's a very old internet debate.  Summary here: http://woozle.org/~neale/papers/reply-to-still-harmful.html

[John Schubert]

Serge,

I use digest mode because I want at most one e-mail from y'all per
day.

If it went to a separate folder, I'd never get around to looking at
it.

Herman,

Your insights on cycling issues are very good, and I want to see more
of them. To me, your sig file is a pain in the butt and I
respectfully wish you'd cease and desist.

I save all useful correspondence from e-mail lists I participate in,
so unnecessary verbiage causes me extra wearisome steps. Why do I do
this? Three reasons:

(1) Occasionally there's an insight worth saving.

(2) It allows me to research, later on, who authored which insights.

(3) Anything _I_ write will be misquoted and used against me. Yes,
it's happened repeatedly. So I need to have a record to protect
myself.

John Schubert
Limeport.org (work)
Facebook.com/John.Schubert (personal)

[Neal]

Hello Michael and All,

 

Interesting .........  Thanks for posting.

 

Cheers,

 

Neal

 

+1 mph Faster

[Frank Krygowski]

Serge, please consider that if lots of people didn't find digest mode
useful, it wouldn't exist and be popular.

For myself, while I'm certainly reasonably competent on the internet,
I just don't want to take the trouble to set up separate filters, nor
remind myself to daily check the Bicycle Driving discussion in a
separate folder. If I wanted to do that, it would be simpler just to
go to the group itself.

Also, I've already got several sites that I intend to check daily, but
forget. In a well-functioning list, digest mode fixes that. It all
comes by email (which I rarely forget to check), and I can quickly
scan to see if the topics are of interest, and enter any discussions
of interest. I waste little time if the discussion strays to, say,
cockatiels or other nonsense. But in this list, in digest mode in
Gmail, the posts get literally buried in the ancillary garbage. It
sometimes takes me several scans to locate where a new post begins.

And let me emphasize, this is the ONLY list I know that does not
function well in digest mode. On some, individuals occasionally
forget to trim (and occasionally get reminders from moderators or
readers), but NO other list has a volume of sig files that matches or
exceeds the volume of informative posts. No other list has the volume
of trolling either. The list function is being subverted by egos out
of control.

- Frank Krygowski

[Alan Wachtel]

Ebeling, Jr., Herman F. wrote:

Speaking of that, why are the e-mails from the group setup so that when one clicks on reply they're replying to the author and not the group?  So that one has to click on "reply all" in order to get their reply to go to the group?

Because that's the most sensible way to do it (others may disagree). E-mails aren't sent from the group; they're sent to the group, from an individual. If you want to reply to the sender, you click Reply. If you want to reply to the group, you click Reply All (or in Thunderbird, alternatively Reply List).

If the Reply-to address is the list, then to reply just to the sender you have to notice and remember to edit the To field in the reply. In practice, messages meant privately for the sender can easily get sent to the list inadvertently, creating e-mail clutter at best and, at times, embarrassment.

--
Alan Wachtel
Palo Alto, California

[Ebeling, Jr., Herman F.]

John,

    I'll admit that this is the only Google group that I am a member of.  I am a member of a number of Yahoo groups.  And while there are some that do generate a lot of mail.  I've never felt the need to go "digest" on any of them.  If they reach the point where I can't deal with the influx of mail from the group I either go "no mail" or unsubscribe from the group.

    Thank you, other than taking drivers ed WAY back in high school and obviously having had a learners permit to do so I have never driven.  I've always (or pretty much always) have been able to get where I want to go by walking, or riding my bike or taking the bus.  Thus, I've logged "more miles" than I care to think about.  And thus have been exposed to some of the best, and sadly some of the worst of the drivers out there.

    Such as, I've had ice/drinks thrown at me, I've had at least one egg thrown at me, have had motorists do the classic sweep and race to beat me to a stop sign/red light, have had too many motorists pass me too close as well as honk their horns at me.  On the plus side I have an increasing number of motorists (on my usual route so we've probably crossed paths as it were more than once) who have politely and patiently wait for me to clear the intersection before they pull out into the intersection, and I'll wave and call out a thank you to them.  I've also have had motorists slow down and wait until it was safe to pass me.  I've even have had motorists thank me and compliment me on having multiple lights on my bike telling me that they've had no problem in seeing me from a distance.

    As I've already said, I do have ADHD as well as Aspergers, so for me it does works best to employ filters and folders to sort my e-mail.  And with Thunderbird highlighting the folders (or sub-folders) that have new e-mail in them by making the text bold it's not that hard to know where there is or isn't new mail that I need to read.

    It has been suggested that it might be "nicer" to just make a web page out of my sig and then include a URL to it.  The problem is as I've explained to a few off list.  I currently do not have access to The Net from home.  Other than I do have a neighbor who is kind enough to allow me to connect to her WiFi router and sharing her Internet access.  Or I have to go to the library or other public place in order to get online.  So if I was to take that suggestion I wouldn't be able to make changes to my signature as often as I would like.

    To those making "helpful" suggestions, I respectfully suggest that you/we all remember that unsolicited advice is rarely excepted in the helpful manner in which it was given.  Think of the last time someone tried to suggest that one would be "safer" riding on the sidewalk as opposed to riding in the road where we all know that we are actually safer.  As an example two of the most recent people (both female) that I gave some advice to both responded in a negative manner.

    One was a gal who was riding her bike the wrong way through the on street parking, her response to me was "go to hell."  The next one was a woman who was walking on the wrong side of The Pinellas Trail.  Her response was "I'm 70-yrs old and I'll walk where I damn well feel like it."

    In both cases I was polite when I attempted to correct them, and it was met with negativity.

    Given that, I try to refrain from giving out unsolicited advice, but if someone is doing something that either directly or indirectly endangers my safety/life I will speak up.  Such as a "salmon" cyclist who is either headed right at me, or who causes a motorist to have to swerve around them and enter my lane to avoid hitting the "salmon" cyclist.

    In the case of a "ninja" cyclist I'll usually just pull over and "drop a dime" on them calling the non-emergency number.  Or if I think that they'll take it well, I'll pull up alongside of them and again politely inform them that they need to have lights, and that the police can issue them a ticket for not having them.  Most of them thank me for letting them know that.  Some of them tell me that they didn't know they were required to have lights.

    I've often considered looking around at the BBS' to see about picking up some cheap light sets to carry with me to hand out to those who do not have lights.

    Oh, in reference to my not having Internet access at home (other than my neighbor who allows me to share her Internet connection) that is why from time-to-time I'm not around for days at a time.

    I apologize for the length of this e-mail, as sometimes I have a tendency to ramble.  Which can probably be traced back to my ADHD and/or Aspergers.

[Ebeling, Jr., Herman F.]

On 09-May-12 00:31, Alan Wachtel wrote:

Because that's the most sensible way to do it (others may disagree). E-mails aren't sent from the group; they're sent to the group, from an individual. If you want to reply to the sender, you click Reply. If you want to reply to the group, you click Reply All (or in Thunderbird, alternatively Reply List).

If the Reply-to address is the list, then to reply just to the sender you have to notice and remember to edit the To field in the reply. In practice, messages meant privately for the sender can easily get sent to the list inadvertently, creating e-mail clutter at best and, at times, embarrassment.

Alan,

    As I've said, this is the only Google group that I am a member of.  And again as I have said I am a member of a number of Yahoo groups.  With them, when one replies to a post from the group said reply goes to the group and it is then sent out to the members.  So that when one clicks, or taps on the reply button it goes to the group.  To me (and I suspect Yahoo) that is the "most sensible" way to do it.

    The reverse of that is also true.  If one is used to just clicking on reply to reply expecting it to go to the group they have to remember to edit the To field in the reply.  I would think that with the way that apparently Google groups work that one is more not less likely to send to send things to the wrong person.  One should be sure that they are sending an e-mail to the person that they intend to send it to.

[Bob Sutterfield]

Ebeling, Jr., Herman F. wrote:

I am a member of a number of Yahoo groups.  With them, when one replies to a post from the group said reply goes to the group and it is then sent out to the members.  So that when one clicks, or taps on the reply button it goes to the group.  To me (and I suspect Yahoo) that is the "most sensible" way to do it.

The reverse of that is also true.  If one is used to just clicking on reply to reply expecting it to go to the group they have to remember to edit the To field in the reply.  I would think that with the way that apparently Google groups work that one is more not less likely to send to send things to the wrong person.  One should be sure that they are sending an e-mail to the person that they intend to send it to.

Both Google Groups and Yahoo Groups can be configured for either default behavior, depending upon the preference of the particular group's administrator.

[Fred Oswald]

Serge asked about what I call the extremely poor signal to noise ratio on this list, particularly for those of us who have things to do other than scroll past useless text.  I am one of those.   I am very nearly ready to abandon this list for a moderated list -- like Chainguard.

Not only am I using digest, at the moment I"m using a Netbook with small screen and somewhat awkward navigation controls and I really do not like this fluff that a few inconsiderate users insist on adding to their numerous (and often useless) posts.  The few useful posts are getting drowned out by the chaff.

As I mentioned above, I am ready to leave.  Perhaps the inconsiderate will consider that a victory.

Fred