rec.autos.simulators

Here's why:

Some newsgroup clients (Outlook Express 5, for one), when creating a reply
to a post will automatically drop anything to the left of a colon in the
subject line. For example,

A reply to a post with a subject of:

"GPL : Some Original Topic"

is generated with a subject of

"Re: Some Original Topic".

This creates a problem when readers filter on particular subjects: Some or
all of the responses may be filtered out. In the example, if a reader was
filtering posts on the subject "GPL", he/she would miss some or all of the
responses to the original post.

Along these same lines, based on the volume of activity in this newsgroup,
it would be helpful if everyone would make an effort to include the acronym
for the sim which is the subject of the post in the subject line. This makes
it easier for all of us to pick up everything that posts relative to our
particular sims of interest. Perhaps someone better versed than I would like
to compile an acronyms list for this purpose?

Trips

That won't work....

Your the 485729586th person to ask to do this.  I know I was "semi-able" for
a week to make this happen long ago.  It's just the mentality of Usenet
users.

There's always people who will do (and they all already do), but the amount
of non-doing people will be far superior.

-= Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard/Nas-Frank>
-= NROS Nascar sanctioned Guide http://www.nros.com/
-= SimRacing Online http://www.simracing.com/
-= Official mentally retarded guy of r.a.s.
-= May the Downforce be with you...

"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realise
how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

If your house was missing a front door, would you expect your friends
and family to just wear coats in the house and ask that your neighbors
gaurd your possessions on a rotating schedule, or would you put a new
door on the place?

---Jim

PS: Any reasonable client will have the ability to thread based on
references, making the fact that someone mangled the subject line
somewhat moot.

Did you spend a lot of time on this?

The threads aren't broken. As I said, some of the posts are filtered out.

 There's plenty of indication in this newsgroup that there are a lot of
people using clients that truncate. Take a look for yourself. Display all
messages and look for any top-level posts that contain a colon. Then look at
the replies to those posts. You'll likely find a lot of truncated subject
lines. Posts with truncated subject lines obviously won't appear in filtered
views if the key word was in the piece of the subject line that was lost. My
suggestion was a simple one that would help insure that no one misses
anything they'd like to read.

Enough said on this subject! I can't really understand anybody's objection
to a suggestion that clearly does no one harm. If you choose to heed the
suggestion, GREAT! If you choose to use colons in your subject line and have
people that are using the default Windows news client miss replies to your
post, that's clearly your choice too. But why waste bandwidth arguing about
a suggestion? If your motivation is to slam Microsoft and/or their news
client, there are plenty of appropriate places to do that!

That's how a real thread is followed and built.  Just an insight on how
Usenet works vs. a news reader.

% By "broken", I mean the client is no longer able to associate a reply with
% its parent post. In my client, Outlook Express, they DO get filtered out and
% are NOT broken. If I show all the messages by removing the filter, all the
% posts are there, including those coming from readers whose clients truncate
% subjects containing colons.

%  There's plenty of indication in this newsgroup that there are a lot of
% people using clients that truncate. Take a look for yourself. Display all
% messages and look for any top-level posts that contain a colon. Then look at
% the replies to those posts. You'll likely find a lot of truncated subject
% lines. Posts with truncated subject lines obviously won't appear in filtered
% views if the key word was in the piece of the subject line that was lost. My
% suggestion was a simple one that would help insure that no one misses
% anything they'd like to read.

% Enough said on this subject! I can't really understand anybody's objection
% to a suggestion that clearly does no one harm. If you choose to heed the
% suggestion, GREAT! If you choose to use colons in your subject line and have
% people that are using the default Windows news client miss replies to your
% post, that's clearly your choice too. But why waste bandwidth arguing about
% a suggestion? If your motivation is to slam Microsoft and/or their news
% client, there are plenty of appropriate places to do that!

--
**************************** Michael E. Carver *************************
     Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./.  [-  < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Respectfully, Michael, I don't think you've read this thread carefully
enough.

Yes, a real newsreader will rely on the subject line when filtering for
a particular post.  But, a "real" newsreader won't hatchet a subject
line just because it saw a ":".  

% Respectfully, Michael, I don't think you've read this thread carefully
% enough.

Unfortunatley, I have followed it carefully and the thread has moved
left and right in what is being talked about.  When we are talking about
threads, this is related to who answered what message and then who
responds to that response.  It is possible for a properly threaded
discussion to have several "threads" in it.  For an example, this is the
"threaded" version of this discussion so far:
     0      GPL N99 N2 Readers and Everybody Else      Jack
     1        GPL N99 N2 Readers and Everybody Else    Trips
     2        GPL N99 N2 Readers and Everybody Else    ymenard
     3          GPL N99 N2 Readers and Everybody Else  John Moore
     4        GPL N99 N2 Readers and Everybody Else    Jim Sokoloff
     5          GPL N99 N2 Readers and Everybody Else  Jack
     6            GPL N99 N2 Readers and Everybody El  Richard Walker
     7              GPL N99 N2 Readers and Everybody   Jack
     8                GPL N99 N2 Readers and Everybod  Michael E. Carver
     9                  GPL N99 N2 Readers and Everyb  Jack

You will notice a couple of things here.  First there are 2 separate
threads tied to this discussion (0-3 & 0,4-9).  These threads are based
on the "Reference" line I mentioned in my previous post, not the subject
line content.

The other thing to note is that there are no "Re:"'s  in this list.  Why
is this?  Well, the proper method of parsing a subject line in Usenet is
to ignore the first 4 characters if they are "Re: " or even "re: ".  

Now a newsreader that bobitizes subject headings based on a ":", is a
piss-poor newsreader.  This used to be a big problem in the old days
when alot of people used "freeware" and "shareware" programs to
"off-load" news articles and generate responses off-line to be later
uploaded.  

Of course your big concern is not "proper threading" (though I was
mislead by your comment, "By 'broken', I mean the client is no longer
able to associate a reply with its parent post." -- which is "threading"
in my book), but contents of subject line.  And of course piss-poor
newsreaders that don't comprehend the rules for Usenet posting/reading.  
You asked us not to use ":"'s in our subject headings.  Well, there
aren't any Usenet rules that say we shouldn't, just poorly coded
newsreaders and their users.  I would suggest one to file a bug report
to the company that wrote their newsreader and ask them to fix it.  Since
Usenet is bigger than any one company (and that includes Microsoft --
though MS doesn't really want to think that's possible <G>).

And to make matters worse, I am changing the subject header of this
message as it is indeed discussing things beyond the original subject
line.   Of course since you are "filering" based on subject line
content, you may miss this post.  Properly coded newsreaders will
recognize this post as a part of the 2nd thread in this discussion
(based on the reference numbers).  Poorly coded newsreaders will see
this as a brand new discussion.  

Don't blame us for the broken tools.

BTW:  I do sympathize with your desire to only read threads of interest
to you and I agree wholeheartedly with need to include acronyms for the
game/sim being discussed in the subject line.  That's why I post the
Introductory FAQ for r.a.s.

--
**************************** Michael E. Carver *************************
     Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./.  [-  < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Great! It sounds as if there's a list of acronyms in the FAQ. If not, maybe
it would be helpful if you or one of the other vets here compiled one?

Take care. Thanks for all the worthwhile contributions you make to this
group.

Person A writes a posting with the subject line "GPL: input problems"

Person B follows up, using a "broken" newsreader, and the subject line
is changed to "Re: input problems"

Person C (with a "good" newsreader) has set up a filter to retrieve
all threads that have "GPL" in the header.

Now, it seems to me that there is a problem only if C's server never
gets the message from A, but just the follow-up. Then, C's newsreader
can't determine that the thread is relevant, since "GPL" doesn't
appear in the subject anymore. So it will skip the "Re: input
problems" thread, including all follow-ups to B's reply.

As soon as either A's original posting appears on C's server, or a
follow-up with an un-truncated subject line ("Re: GPL: input
problems") is posted, the whole thread will be marked for retrieval,
based on the references in the header.

Given that interesting threads tend to contain many replies to the
original message, some (most?) of which will have a complete subject
line, this seems to be a minor problem. But a problem nonetheless.

Ok, you have convinced me. If I manage to remember, I will prefix my
next original posting with something like "GPL -" rather than "GPL:"

But since not many people will do this, here is a workaround which
should help you to retrieve all threads that are of interest to you:
after a while of reading RAS, you will know which people usually post
stuff you deem interesting. Set a watch filter to retrieve all
messages by those people. If you see a message by one of those guys in
a thread you find interesting, but which your newsreader didn't
retrieve in its entirety, just manually mark this thread for
retrieval. Bingo.

--
Wolfgang Preiss   \ E-mail copies of replies to this posting are welcome.

Bingo. Person C (with the "good" newsreader) misses posts in which he's
interested, because B was one of millions with a "broken" newsreader.

I believe the original post also addressed the possibility of comming up with
"standard" acronyms to help in filtering on subjects.

I wanted to read N99 or NASCAR99 or N1999

BUT NOOOOOOOO!

What'd I get?  A crapload of drivel about who has the bestest newsreader and
who has a broke toilet seat.

SHEESH!!!!!
Doug B. Jackson  MI
You think in the storm we've found the eye of the calm.....Bill Mallonnee,
Vigilantes Of Love

Well, I'm glad somebody noticed, Doug.

I did discover that Michael Carver does periodically post some guidelines
for this newsgroup, under the following subject:

"[rec.autos.simulators] New Readers please read - Welcome!"

It contains many of the commonly used acronyms used for sims discussed by
this group, although I'm not sure that it's completely up-to-date.

Hope it helps.