Rabbit holes and thread hijacking...

[Joseph Travis]

A friendly reminder to everyone regarding threads here on the mail list along with Discord... Please stay on topic!  Avoid going down rabbit holes and don't hijack the thread for something unrelated just because it's too difficult to start your own.

Now, I'm sure some will exclaim "Now we got thread police!"  That's not what this is about at all.

The point is that information / data is lost when this occurs.  Imagine when someone is trying to hunt down some useful information they may have seen in an old thread or a newbie trying to find things out before asking questions and can't find what they are looking for because the content doesn't match.

Be kind, stay on topic.  Start a new thread if you want to change the subject.

Thank you.

[Peter Higgins]

When I view each of the Discord SEBHC "channels" they appear to be one continuous stream of messages that flip back and forth between different topics without evidence of a thread structure to it... or am I just not viewing Discord correctly?

[Joseph Travis]

B9,

Thread refers to a string of messages along the same topic / subject.   You're thinking along the right lines.   In a roundabout way you did the right thing by changing the subject line, however a better way would have been to send an email to: se...@googlegroups.com with your new subject line.

On Fri, Jan 9, 2026 at 9:07 AM B 9 <hack...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm new to this list, so I want to check what you mean by "thread". It could either mean the "Subject" or the "In-Reply-To" email headers. For example, I replied to a message from Glenn and changed the Subject line to "It's 2026, where's your Heathkit at?". That kept the In-Reply-To field the same, which some mail readers will show as being part of the same "thread". 

I feel like that is the right way to do things because then the subject line matches the content but it also preserves the natural branching structure of the conversation. Context is also important information that should not be discarded. If I'm wrong and the rules of this mailing list are to omit the In-Reply-To, I will of course try to do that. I just need to know which kind of "threads" are problematic.

Thanks,

—b9

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[Joseph Travis]

Hi Peter,

You are correct in your view(s).  This is why I put the message out there, to help everyone to be able to follow along.  Unfortunately, we're all guilty of going down the rabbit hole sometimes and it gets worse when others follow suit.

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[B9]

Discord doesn't show threads? Maybe consider using https://groups.google.com/g/sebhc ?

--b9

[Joseph Travis]

Discord uses "Channels" which most people treat as topics.  Within each channel, you can have separate topic threads so that the information is less convoluted.  It's essentially a chat room with a certain amount of chaos.

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[glenn.f...@gmail.com]

So the SEBHC google group grew out of the earlier SEBHC list which started almost 19 years ago. Mark Garlanger has an archive of that list on his site: The original SEBHC Archives

 

That evolved into a Google group (where I am posting this email) which is searchable here:

SEBHC - Google Groups

 

The google group has 405 members and I encourage people to post here and discuss their work, questions, issues, etc. Because it is more easily searchable I find it a more useful reference after the fact to go back and find things.

 

Many of us have migrated to using the SEBHC Discord channel. It brings its own value (primarily very rapid response and back-and-forth discussions and drill down) but (at least in my opinion) it is harder to go back and find things that are posted there.

 

I hope people will consider contributing to both forums, with the broader interest or “archival” information posted here on the Google list and the more day-to-day minutia and chatter on Discord.

 

• Glenn
•  

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