Re: [PATCH v2 1/3] Documentation/MyFirstContribution: recommend shallow threading

From: Kristoffer Haugsbakk <kristofferhaugsbakk@fastmail.com>
Date: Jun 3, 2026, 20:09 UTC
Message-ID: <f1dbb848-2d9b-488a-835b-2d23006b5fa6@app.fastmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <20260603-pks-b4-v2-1-a8aea0aa2c23@pks.im>

On Wed, Jun 3, 2026, at 08:58, Patrick Steinhardt wrote:

Show 17 quoted lines

> The "MyFirstContribution" document recommends the use of deep threading:
> every cover letter of subsequent iterations shall be linked to the cover
> letter of the preceding version. The result of this is that eventually,
> threads with many versions are getting nested so deep that it becomes
> hard to follow.
>
> Adapt the recommendation to instead propose shallow threading: instead
> of linking the cover letter to the previous cover letter, the user is
> supposed to always link it to the first cover letter. This still makes
> it easy to follow the iterations, but has the benefit of nesting to a
> much shallower level.
>
> Signed-off-by: Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>
> ---
>  Documentation/MyFirstContribution.adoc | 4 ++--
>  1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
>[snip]

Only today did I notice that your eleven-version git-history(1) series uses this style. (Or: today I noticed that it’a thing)

https://lore.kernel.org/git/20250819-b4-pks-history-builtin-v1-0-9b77c32688fe@pks.im/

That would have had a bad rightward drift with the usual reply to previous version style.

I’ve been reading Lore on Safari on mobile and some threads go so deep that the replies just become unclickable backticks. *Huh?* Well I can use the Next/Previous buttons and maybe there is a way to make it work, but I’ve just given up on those right-going subthreads. ;)

... and I also don’t see any drawbacks to that threading, using that series as an example. It looks just as comprehensible as the usual style.