Too many posts spoil the broth ....

[Francis Nugent Dixon]

A very respectful Hi to all on the forum,

I bought Revolution recently, and although I used Hypercard for many 
years, and pushed it pretty hard, I understand that my learning curve 
to Revolution will be long and eye-opening. I came on to this forum to 
learn, and pretty quickly found several types of postings :

1 - Hi-Level musing about 'Languages", and such ....
2 - Bugzilla and those who want more response, and a better way of 
maintaining Revolution
3 - Problems arising with the current release.
4 - I've been trying to do this ".....", but it doesn't work. Any 
suggestions ?

I understand completely what the word "FORUM" means, but .........!

Postings of type (1) go right over my head, and refer to worlds that I 
have never even heard about (and will never be interested in), so they 
do not concern me.

Postings of type (2) leave me stone-cold, as I have a stable version of 
Revolution (I followed the old English adage "Look before you leap"), 
and will only go to the next PAYING upgrade when I am sure that it is 
essentially bug-free. The way in which Revolution solves its bugs does 
not interest me.

Postings of type (3) allow me to make that decision to go to the next 
upgrade, so I will read this type of post !

Postings of type (4) and their (often expert) responses are valuable to 
me. I carefully store away the information for possible future use, in 
a Revolution Stack (of course). The idea of trawling through old 
postings in the future to solve a problem that I think was expertly 
aired some time in the past, can keep me up all night, so I alleviate 
the problem.

One thing that really BUGs me is the continual use of the "include all 
previous posts, sometimes indented to level 3 and 4" in what is often a 
short response to a previous post. What use does the "Subject" serve if 
many posters uselessly include the text of previous posts. Why do we 
receive up to 4 post-lists a day often containing more than 50% of 
repeated post texts ? Do you guys really want to do this, or don't you 
know how to set OFF the check-box "include original message text in 
your reply"  of your mail preferences ?

I am now spending more than an hour every day scanning posts that do 
not interest me in the slightest, in order to pick up the "gems" of 
more expert Revolution users than myself that I NEED to know. I just 
don't have that time ! It is rather like spending 3 hours preparing a 
meal and only taking 5 minutes to eat it ! As an example, I humbly 
accept that this post may not interest many of the members of this 
forum !!!

I would like to be able to examine the daily lists, and extract those 
posts that could possibly interest me, but WITH A REV STACK. Would it 
be possible (I hesitate to dare ask such a REVOLUTIONary question !) to 
define post types by a code (in the "Subject"), so that within seconds, 
I can know if something interesting (to me) has been posted today. The 
post lists could start a few lines such as :

In your Subject, please indicate by codes (1), (2), (3), etc. the type 
of post that you are sending :

Type (1) posts concern xxx
Type (2) posts concern yyy
etc.

I may have started a thread which could stop in 24 hours, but maybe 
other posters have someting to say on this subject.

Et à la fin de l'envoi .... je touche ! (which could roughly translate 
into "thems my 2 cents")

Francis Dixon (Paris)

"Nothing should ever be done for the first time ...."