开云体育

Why do the numbers for lists show number of topics instead of the number of messages?

What counts as a topic? Is it the same as messages?

Why have “topics”?

Sharon
-----
Sharon Villines, Washington, DC

"Focus means saying no to the 100 good ideas out there. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things." Steve Jobs

A Topic is a group of messages that consisting of the initial message and all ongoing replies. Hence, the name of the Topic is the subject of the first message.

The number shown in Topics view is a count of the messages in the topic.

--
Gerald

Or in other words, Threads?

Frances

PS

Topics is more user friendly IMO!

Frances

On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 06:25 am, Frances wrote:

Or in other words, Threads?

Frances

?Haha.

I wanted to use "Threads" so many times, but deleted the word, not knowing what terminology is common to others here. So, I ended up with that lame sounding explanation instead.

--
Gerald

Topic = Subject around which a discussion ensues and is set by the first message.

Discussion = the series of messages replying to the first or subsequent messages under that Topic.

Thread = a series of consecutive replies, e.g., A replies, B replies to A, C replies to B,... Threads can branch, e.g., D also replies to A, A to D, X to D,...

Discussions can be presented as threaded (indent for each reply) or flat ( unthreaded). Groups.io is flat. More explanation?.

Sharon,

Why do the numbers for lists show number of topics instead of the
number of messages?

Interesting observation, I hadn't noticed that. I'm not sure why, maybe it was thought that topics better represents the activity, or at least diversity of activity, in the group.

What counts as a topic? Is it the same as messages?

To what others have said, I'll just add that I have colloquially used "topic" and "thread" interchangeably. Both refer to an initial message and the collection of messages in reply, and the replies to the replies.

When speaking specifically about a Groups.io function I try to remember to use "Topic", as that's the name for them here. In other times and places I've tended to use "topic" in the English language sense of a single subject of conversation; and "thread" to refer to the technical, email-specific (or forum-specific), meaning above.

Shal


--
Help: /static/help
More Help: /g/GroupManagersForum/wiki
Even More Help: Search button at the top of Messages list

On Apr 8, 2018, at 1:25 AM, Gerald Boutin <groupsio@...> wrote:

A Topic is a group of messages that consisting of the initial message and all ongoing replies. Hence, the name of the Topic is the subject of the first message.

The number shown in Topics view is a count of the messages in the topic.

The reason I like hashtags is that the topic is clear—its like a standardized key word. Subject lines are not clear. If someone changes it or the thread is the same subject as a thread from yesterday or last, that isn’t reflected.

Counting topics by using subject lines doesn’t really mean anything beyond how many people responded to that one message and didn’t change the subject line.

One list with tens of thousands of messages could probably be narrowed down to 15 topics.

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines, Washington DC

"Save Our Planet. It's the only one with chocolate."

Sharon,

The reason I like hashtags is that the topic is clear—its like a
standardized key word.

While I agree, I'm not sure how that's relevant to your original question about Groups.io's directory listings.

Subject lines are not clear. If someone changes it or the thread is
the same subject as a thread from yesterday or last, that isn’t
reflected.

Groups.io's processing of inbound messages to determine whether they should be added to an existing Topic or start a new Topic is more restrictive than Y!Groups's was.

There are two basic factors in both implementations:

1) Whether the message has the same Subject line (excluding things like Re:) as an existing message.

2) Whether the message has an "In-Reply-To" field in its header that cites an existing message. Most email interfaces will insert that standard header field when the user Replies to a message rather than Composes a new one. Some email interfaces use the "References" header field instead; Groups.io uses that one also, Y!Groups did not.

Where the two differ is that Y!G's implementation uses the logical OR of those two conditions, where Groups.io uses a more complex evaluation.

A practical difference is that a frequent complaint relating to Y!Groups was that someone could post a new message whose Subject line happened to be a textual match for a message that was years old, and Y!Groups would tie them together anyway (condition 1); and conversely a member could post entirely new content under a changed Subject line, but because they happened to start with a reply to an existing message it would get tied to that messages (condition 2).

On the other hand the complaint for Groups.io is more often the other way around - messages that should have been treated as part of an existing Topic sometimes aren't.

There's no perfect world, I think.

One list with tens of thousands of messages could probably be narrowed
down to 15 topics.

With Groups.io's more restrictive evaluation that's much less likely. In particular, a message won't link to an existing Topic if the last post in that Topic is more than two weeks old - unless condition (2) is also met.

Shal


--
Help: /static/help
More Help: /g/GroupManagersForum/wiki
Even More Help: Search button at the top of Messages list

On Apr 9, 2018, at 12:02 AM, Shal Farley <shals2nd@...> wrote:

The reason I like hashtags is that the topic is clear—its like a
standardized key word.

While I agree, I'm not sure how that's relevant to your original question about Groups.io's directory listings.

This was in relation to the subject lines — hashtags are standard so they are more likely to catch all the messages on that topic — if people use them. I forget them, but I recognize their value. Subject lines are very undependable.

My real interest, I think, is seeing the number of messages more than number of topics. Not sure why that is relevant in a list 20 years old.

Sharon

Sharon/all,
? Hashtags are just as likely to be unreliable as subject lines - simply
because both of them are dependent upon the poster using them.
And, in my experience, people are -very- prone to 'wandering' off
the topic (one post suggests something else to the person doing
the "reply") and they often do not change the subject line/hashtag
when they post something that is unrelated to the current thread.
? Often it is hard to fault any one post.? Someone sees something
and it sparks a marginally related idea - and they post a message
that is 'acceptably within the scope of the post they are replying to" ...
and then someone else increases the drift ... and what was the
intent of the O.P. gets lost altogether.

? I consider this to be a 'natural' phenomenon (i.e. people aren't
likely to change the subject line because that's just a little bit
more work) and also a direct result of people using their
phone/tablet where it is more difficult to change the subject
line.? On my phone, for example, I can't -easily- change the
subject line of an email - in order to do so I have to totally
replace it by first backspacing thru all of the line.

? ? I, for one, rarely if ever, use anything other than my
desktop with a real keyboard and mouse to "work on my
groups" - it's actually much easier for both replies and
just reading..

? There is another aspect - many of us these days do not
seem to "care" about things such as grammar or?
spelling.? *Sigh*.? The predominant thinking is "as long
as I expect everyone to figure it out ... why bother
correcting stuff like that" ... "I don't have time for that
kind of stuff".? Pride in your work?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? - Jim B.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?- Jim B.