- From: Graham Klyne <GK-lists@ninebynine.org>
- Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 12:11:07 +0100
- To: Arnt Gulbrandsen <arnt@gulbrandsen.priv.no>
- Cc: www-archive@w3.org
At 19:21 27/10/04 +0200, you wrote: >Graham Klyne writes: >>Utility? That's easy! The system described by Martin's draft is >>extremely useful. It is implemented by the w3.org mailing list systems, >>and in my work using those mailing lists I've made frequent and >>much-appreciated use of the feature. > >Describe, please. The best way to experience this is to use a W3.org mailing list. Essentially, each message is sent from the mailing list system with an added header field like that described in Martin's document (actually: X-Archived-At) with a URI that can be clicked to retrieve the archived copy of the message in a browser. This makes it very easy to find URIs for archived copies of messages received in email, and hence makes it very easy to insert cross-references in email to ealrier messages. For example, how often do you see, on an IETF mailing list, in response to a question: "we discussed that, go read the archive", or something like that. In W3.org mailing lists, one is far more likely to see as response like "we discussed that, see this URI", which is *much* more helpful. Another discussion, when proposals are being offered on a mailing list, it is very common to see them consistently referenced by URI in W3.org mailing lists, rather than a vague "so and so said this about 3 months ago". The practical effect of this is that it is very much easier to review discussions and find relevant messages than it is with mailing lists that don't encourage this behaviour. The mailing list archive becomes a valuable resource that assists the structured and principled discussion of issues around a topic. In short, it's a simple technical feature that enables very helpful social behaviour. And it works. It doesn't require anything exotic in the way of MUA support: as long as the MUA displays the header field, or makes its value visible, then the requisite information is ready to use: simply click (or cut-and-paste if your MUA doesn't recognize URIs in messages). #g -- BTW, another w3.org feature: I've cc'd this message to www-archive@w3.org, which is an archive-only mailing list, and also to myself. This is implicitly permission to re-use the message in a public forum (as this particular archive is publicly accessible), and also provides a way to refer to the message without having to retype it if I want to communicate the same information to someone else. ------------ Graham Klyne For email: http://www.ninebynine.org/#Contact
Received on Thursday, 28 October 2004 12:47:02 UTC