X-Message-Number: 4057
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 1995 14:41:56 -0800
From: "Kevin Q. Brown" <kqb>
Subject: ADMIN: Subject lines

While scanning through the archives I noticed that many messages
have nondescriptive subjects such as:

    Re: CryoNet #4080 - #4567

This makes the archives less useful because it's not clear from the
subject what is the actual topic of the message.  Of course, I realize
that for some people it may be difficult to send messages with more
descriptive subject lines because the "reply" commands in their mail
programs generate the subject lines automatically and are not easy
to override.  Now I have done something to help fix that.

A recent enhancement to the CryoNet software will give you a
second chance to set the subject line for your message.  If the
first nonblank line of the body of your message begins with:
    Subject:
the new software will _replace_ the Subject line in the header
of your message with that new Subject line before building the
CryoNet digest.  For example, the message:

   From: 
   Subject: Re: CryoNet #3507 - #4023

   Subject: Frozen dinners
   Has anyone requested preservation of their favorite foods so
   that they will have something good to eat when they are revived?
 
will go to CryoNet as:

   From: 
   Subject: Frozen dinners

   Has anyone requested preservation of their favorite foods so
   that they will have something good to eat when they are revived?

As you can see, this small software enhancement remarkably improves
the quality of discussion on CryoNet! :-)  The software recognizes
small variations on a Subject line, too.  It's OK to put leading blank
space before "Subject:" and either upper or lower case letters are OK.
You can even abbreviate to "subj:", but you _must_ have the trailing
colon.  This is because some legitimate English sentences beginning
with "Subject" should _not_ be interpreted as Subject lines.  For example:

  Subject to conditions blah blah blah, clearly blather blather blather.

By the way, the new software also removes trailing blank lines and extra
blank lines at the beginning of the messages, too.

                              Kevin Q. Brown
                              
                              
                              

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