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To: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org>
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Subject: Re: Cool Web page interface to mail + search engine? 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 25 Mar 1997 15:43:06 MST."
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Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 15:20:14 -0800
From: Amancio Hasty <hasty@rah.star-gate.com>
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And the answer is!!! <cool rave music playing in the background>

We adopt a new communication form, which is:

1. controlled
2. has clear topics 
3. You communicate with a centralized agent who is then responsible
   for distributing the information be in a web base form , or a 
   a less sophisticated medium such as a mailing list.

What I have in mind is a mechanism in which people post formal
documents and the discussions are mediated by a "chair person" of the 
discussion. The random thought walks that we currently have in this
list can't be managed by the simplistic mailing scheme that we have.
In brief, we are quickly out growing the capabilities of the 
current mailing list scenario.

BTW: Your so call mail header problems are not that difficult to 
tackle if we control the mail header generation within  the mailing
list program and tag each mail message with an appropriate header.


Next 8)

	Regards,
	Amancio

>From The Desk Of Terry Lambert :
> > Thats one way of looking at it. However, you seem to imply that
> > to thread a topic the date and subject line are sufficient. Yet,
> > we both know that people love to wander off in different directions
> > using the same subject line. It seems that we need stronger criteria
> > for what constitutes a topic in order to have meaningful topic threads.
> > 
> > The difference between your point of view and mine is a matter of
> > syntax vs. semantics.
> > 
> > Got another riddle? 8)
> 
> Sure.  I have three.
> 
> Say I grant your position above.
> 
> 1)	How do you make me change MUA's so I provide you with an
> 	"In-reply-to:" header when you provide me with a
> 	"Message-ID:" header?
> 
> 2)	How do you make me change MUA's so I provide "Message-ID:"
> 	headers on all the messages I originate?
> 
> Answers:
> 
> 1)	You don't.  You can't tell me what mailer I can or can't run.
> 
> 2)	You don't.  You can't tell me what mailer I can or can't run.
> 
> 
> Now the third riddle:
> 
> 3)	How do you approximate threading, given the above, and the fact
> 	that you only control the list server, not the clients?
> 
> Answers?
> 
> 
> 					Regards,
> 					Terry Lambert
> 					terry@lambert.org
> ---
> Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
> or previous employers.