list etiquette

[Warren Samples]

Hello all,

 From time to time certain issue of list etiquette have been brought up 
and discussed. Cross-posting to this and the dev list, top or bottom 
responding, succinct message copying, and whether or not to leave a 
message intact while responding or slicing it and responding point by 
point have been some of the issues discussed in recent months.

I would like to respectfully ask that certain members of the list 
consider their method for posting new topics. I have noticed a problem 
with unrelated topics being folded into a single subject thread and from 
looking at message headers it seems this is because each of these topics 
was introduced by replying to a message and changing the subject instead 
of addressing a new message to the list. The result of this can be a 
thread which contains discussions of several different topics. This may 
further result in people not seeing your topic if it falls within a 
thread whose subject doesn't interest them.

An example would be the thread with the subject "Why can't LC do what 
PencilCase does?" Under that thread are 11 completely unrelated message 
threads, each having headers that indicate each new topic was initiated 
as a response to a previous but unrelated message within that thread.

It might be a more polite and better strategy to compose a new message 
to the list to introduce a new topic rather than doing it in a reply to 
a previous (unrelated) message.

Cheers,

Warren