# [RFC] Stopping those fat "What's cooking in git.git" threads

15 messages from 2008-07-20 to 2008-07-21. Participants: Miklos Vajna, Stephan Beyer, Junio C Hamano, Jakub Narebski, Petr Baudis, Sverre Rabbelier, Andreas Ericsson, Pierre Habouzit, Johannes Schindelin.
Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/14551

## Miklos Vajna, 2008-07-20 20:51

Subject: [RFC] Stopping those fat "What's cooking in git.git" threads
Message-ID: <20080720205125.GP10347@genesis.frugalware.org>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20080720205125.GP10347%40genesis.frugalware.org

```
Hi,

As far as I remember, it was Petr Baudis who first asked on IRC if
these threads (being so big and deep) are annoying for other people as
well or not.

I think it's just hard to follow the discussion as the subject is
usually not changed, so for example when the subject contains "merge", I
carefully read that mail, but I can easily miss such a mail if it's
still "What's cooking in".

An other problem with deep threads is that it just doesn't fit in one's
screen, so I had to use tricks for example to see if a mail was a reply
to my mail or to some other mail.

So here is what I thought about: What about if everyone (except Junio,
of course) would change the subject _and_ remove the In-Reply-To: header
when replying to those mails?

If those large threads just annoys a few people and most people are
happy with the current situation then sorry for the noise.

Thanks.

```

## Stephan Beyer, 2008-07-20 20:58

Subject: Re: [RFC] Stopping those fat "What's cooking in git.git" threads
Message-ID: <20080720205852.GA5950@leksak.fem-net>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20080720205852.GA5950%40leksak.fem-net
In-Reply-To: <20080720205125.GP10347@genesis.frugalware.org>

```
Hi,

Miklos Vajna wrote:
> I think it's just hard to follow the discussion as the subject is
> usually not changed, so for example when the subject contains "merge", I
> carefully read that mail, but I can easily miss such a mail if it's
> still "What's cooking in".

I agree that changing a subject (with "(was: <oldsubject>)") is nicer to
find specific mails later.

> So here is what I thought about: What about if everyone (except Junio,
> of course) would change the subject _and_ remove the In-Reply-To: header
> when replying to those mails?

"Everyone should" bla usually does not work in open communities.

And why not vice versa?
A new "What's cooking in " mail with new cookings could start a new
thread instead of replying to old "What's cooking in" mails...

> If those large threads just annoys a few people and most people are
> happy with the current situation then sorry for the noise.

Hm, I don't really care.

Mutt is able to link and break threads with

	#       break-thread         break the thread in two
	&        link-threads         link tagged message to the current one

so I am able to design the threads as I like it ;)
(And I am also able to change subjects as I like, so I don't have a
problem.)

Regards,
  Stephan

-- 
Stephan Beyer <s-beyer@gmx.net>, PGP 0x6EDDD207FCC5040F

```

## Junio C Hamano, 2008-07-20 21:05

Subject: Re: [RFC] Stopping those fat "What's cooking in git.git" threads
Message-ID: <7vsku44679.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/7vsku44679.fsf%40gitster.siamese.dyndns.org
In-Reply-To: <20080720205125.GP10347@genesis.frugalware.org>

```
Miklos Vajna <vmiklos@frugalware.org> writes:

> So here is what I thought about: What about if everyone (except Junio,
> of course) would change the subject _and_ remove the In-Reply-To: header
> when replying to those mails?
>
> If those large threads just annoys a few people and most people are
> happy with the current situation then sorry for the noise.

I could make "What's cooking" not a follow-up to the previous issue, or
perhaps add "(volume 1.6.0, issue 28)" at the end of the Subject.

But I think it is a good idea to change the subject when responding to one
part of the message to say which topic your response is about.

I do not know if stripping "In-reply-to" is a great idea, though.  They
are responses, aren't they?

```

## Miklos Vajna, 2008-07-20 21:21

Subject: Re: [RFC] Stopping those fat "What's cooking in git.git" threads
Message-ID: <20080720212144.GQ10347@genesis.frugalware.org>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20080720212144.GQ10347%40genesis.frugalware.org
In-Reply-To: <7vsku44679.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>

```
On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 02:05:30PM -0700, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
> But I think it is a good idea to change the subject when responding to one
> part of the message to say which topic your response is about.

It was me as well, who did not change the subject; I'll try to pay
attention to do so.

> I do not know if stripping "In-reply-to" is a great idea, though.  They
> are responses, aren't they?

Personally I'm fine with mutt's "break thread" feature, I just proposed
it because I saw it was mentioned multiple times that gmane does not
handle huge threads nicely. But yes, you have reason about keeping the
header makes sense as well.

```

## Jakub Narebski, 2008-07-20 21:38

Subject: Re: [RFC] Stopping those fat "What's cooking in git.git" threads
Message-ID: <m3sku4w822.fsf@localhost.localdomain>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/m3sku4w822.fsf%40localhost.localdomain
In-Reply-To: <7vsku44679.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>

```
Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:

> Miklos Vajna <vmiklos@frugalware.org> writes:
> 
> > So here is what I thought about: What about if everyone (except Junio,
> > of course) would change the subject _and_ remove the In-Reply-To: header
> > when replying to those mails?
> >
> > If those large threads just annoys a few people and most people are
> > happy with the current situation then sorry for the noise.
> 
> I could make "What's cooking" not a follow-up to the previous issue,

Or perhaps break it from time to time (on major release perhaps?).

> or perhaps add "(volume 1.6.0, issue 28)" at the end of the Subject.

Very good idea.

> But I think it is a good idea to change the subject when responding to one
> part of the message to say which topic your response is about.
> 
> I do not know if stripping "In-reply-to" is a great idea, though.  They
> are responses, aren't they?

The problem with above is if you are replying to many points
simultaneously.

I think however that patches should rather start a new thread.
-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland
ShadeHawk on #git

```

## Stephan Beyer, 2008-07-20 21:46

Subject: Re: [RFC] Stopping those fat "What's cooking in git.git" threads
Message-ID: <20080720214616.GB5950@leksak.fem-net>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20080720214616.GB5950%40leksak.fem-net
In-Reply-To: <m3sku4w822.fsf@localhost.localdomain>

```
Hi,

Jakub Narebski wrote:
> I think however that patches should rather start a new thread.

If a patch is a consequence of a discussion in a thread, I see no
reason, why the patch should not be in that thread.

Regards.

-- 
Stephan Beyer <s-beyer@gmx.net>, PGP 0x6EDDD207FCC5040F

```

## Petr Baudis, 2008-07-20 21:48

Subject: Re: [RFC] Stopping those fat "What's cooking in git.git" threads
Message-ID: <20080720214811.GF32184@machine.or.cz>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20080720214811.GF32184%40machine.or.cz
In-Reply-To: <7vsku44679.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>

```
On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 02:05:30PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> I could make "What's cooking" not a follow-up to the previous issue, or
> perhaps add "(volume 1.6.0, issue 28)" at the end of the Subject.

> But I think it is a good idea to change the subject when responding to one
> part of the message to say which topic your response is about.
> 
> I do not know if stripping "In-reply-to" is a great idea, though.  They
> are responses, aren't they?

I think responses to the what's cooking mails per se should certainly
have in-reply-to set properly. I'm rather wondering if there's some
specific reasons why do you keep all the "What's cooking" mails in a
single thread? If there is nothing particular, keeping each "What's
cooking" report in a separate mail might be easier on a portion of
readers. I will use break-thread now (thanks, didn't know about it!) but
the practice seems strange to me.

-- 
				Petr "Pasky" Baudis
As in certain cults it is possible to kill a process if you know
its true name.  -- Ken Thompson and Dennis M. Ritchie

```

## Sverre Rabbelier, 2008-07-20 22:50

Subject: Re: [RFC] Stopping those fat "What's cooking in git.git" threads
Message-ID: <bd6139dc0807201550v27d6db3epd0d0b4bc663e0351@mail.gmail.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/bd6139dc0807201550v27d6db3epd0d0b4bc663e0351%40mail.gmail.com
In-Reply-To: <7vsku44679.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>

```
On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 11:05 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
> I could make "What's cooking" not a follow-up to the previous issue, or
> perhaps add "(volume 1.6.0, issue 28)" at the end of the Subject.

The downside of this is that it'll be less easy to see the difference
with the previous version. GMail tries to mark text that appeared a
previous mail in purple, so new text 'stands out' in the regular black
(it's not that good at it though).
So WRT to not making them follow ups, an improvement would be a diff
with the previous version online somewhere, although I guess the
http://tinyurl.com/todobranch is exactly that modulo your (Junio's)
comments on the topics.

-- 
Cheers,

Sverre Rabbelier

```

## Junio C Hamano, 2008-07-20 23:16

Subject: Re: [RFC] Stopping those fat "What's cooking in git.git" threads
Message-ID: <7v3am42lk2.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/7v3am42lk2.fsf%40gitster.siamese.dyndns.org
In-Reply-To: <bd6139dc0807201550v27d6db3epd0d0b4bc663e0351@mail.gmail.com>

```
"Sverre Rabbelier" <alturin@gmail.com> writes:

> On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 11:05 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>> I could make "What's cooking" not a follow-up to the previous issue, or
>> perhaps add "(volume 1.6.0, issue 28)" at the end of the Subject.
>
> The downside of this is that it'll be less easy to see the difference
> with the previous version.

My vague recollection is that it was Pasky who complained long time ago
when "What's in" was not a follow-up to its previous round, which led me
to switch my workflow to send them in the current form.  You cannot
satisfy certain people no matter what you do.

```

## Sverre Rabbelier, 2008-07-20 23:19

Subject: Re: [RFC] Stopping those fat "What's cooking in git.git" threads
Message-ID: <bd6139dc0807201619g6c268488kd6b45109a246638d@mail.gmail.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/bd6139dc0807201619g6c268488kd6b45109a246638d%40mail.gmail.com
In-Reply-To: <7v3am42lk2.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>

```
On Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 1:16 AM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>> On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 11:05 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>>> I could make "What's cooking" not a follow-up to the previous issue, or
>>> perhaps add "(volume 1.6.0, issue 28)" at the end of the Subject.
>>
>> The downside of this is that it'll be less easy to see the difference
>> with the previous version.
>
> My vague recollection is that it was Pasky who complained long time ago
> when "What's in" was not a follow-up to its previous round, which led me
> to switch my workflow to send them in the current form.  You cannot
> satisfy certain people no matter what you do.

Add an interdiff at the bottom of the mail? You can't satisfy
everybody no matter what you do, but you can come quite far, it
usually means you have to do a lot of work to do so though.

```

## Junio C Hamano, 2008-07-21 04:24

Subject: Re: [RFC] Stopping those fat "What's cooking in git.git" threads
Message-ID: <7vprp7yie5.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/7vprp7yie5.fsf%40gitster.siamese.dyndns.org
In-Reply-To: <bd6139dc0807201619g6c268488kd6b45109a246638d@mail.gmail.com>

```
"Sverre Rabbelier" <alturin@gmail.com> writes:

> On Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 1:16 AM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>>> On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 11:05 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>>>> I could make "What's cooking" not a follow-up to the previous issue, or
>>>> perhaps add "(volume 1.6.0, issue 28)" at the end of the Subject.
>>>
>>> The downside of this is that it'll be less easy to see the difference
>>> with the previous version.
>>
>> My vague recollection is that it was Pasky who complained long time ago
>> when "What's in" was not a follow-up to its previous round, which led me
>> to switch my workflow to send them in the current form.  You cannot
>> satisfy certain people no matter what you do.
>
> Add an interdiff at the bottom of the mail? You can't satisfy
> everybody no matter what you do, but you can come quite far, it
> usually means you have to do a lot of work to do so though.

Do you think I have an infinite bandwidth?  I don't.

```

## Andreas Ericsson, 2008-07-21 05:27

Subject: Re: [RFC] Stopping those fat "What's cooking in git.git" threads
Message-ID: <48841E28.9050903@op5.se>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/48841E28.9050903%40op5.se
In-Reply-To: <7vsku44679.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>

```
Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Miklos Vajna <vmiklos@frugalware.org> writes:
> 
>> So here is what I thought about: What about if everyone (except Junio,
>> of course) would change the subject _and_ remove the In-Reply-To: header
>> when replying to those mails?
>>
>> If those large threads just annoys a few people and most people are
>> happy with the current situation then sorry for the noise.
> 
> I could make "What's cooking" not a follow-up to the previous issue, or
> perhaps add "(volume 1.6.0, issue 28)" at the end of the Subject.
> 

I would very much prefer that (both of them, really). Thunderbird's
threading is not so advanced as mutt's, so I can't break threads so easily.

The most annoying part is that the timebased auto-delete from thunderbird
means I get a new thread spawning in the middle of an old partially deleted
one. It can be very confusing.

-- 
Andreas Ericsson                   andreas.ericsson@op5.se
OP5 AB                             www.op5.se
Tel: +46 8-230225                  Fax: +46 8-230231

```

## Pierre Habouzit, 2008-07-21 06:33

Subject: Re: [RFC] Stopping those fat "What's cooking in git.git" threads
Message-ID: <20080721063332.GA15596@artemis.madism.org>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20080721063332.GA15596%40artemis.madism.org
In-Reply-To: <7vsku44679.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>

```
On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 09:05:30PM +0000, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Miklos Vajna <vmiklos@frugalware.org> writes:
> 
> > So here is what I thought about: What about if everyone (except Junio,
> > of course) would change the subject _and_ remove the In-Reply-To: header
> > when replying to those mails?
> >
> > If those large threads just annoys a few people and most people are
> > happy with the current situation then sorry for the noise.
> 
> I could make "What's cooking" not a follow-up to the previous issue,

  That'd be great, especially since it's trivial with decent MUAs to get
all issues with a filter (l in mutt, kmail/thunderbird has what it
needs, and I would be surprised if GNUS or pine cannot do that).

-- 
·O·  Pierre Habouzit
··O                                                madcoder@debian.org
OOO                                                http://www.madism.org

```

## Johannes Schindelin, 2008-07-21 10:19

Subject: Re: [RFC] Stopping those fat "What's cooking in git.git" threads
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.1.00.0807211219080.3305@eeepc-johanness>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/alpine.DEB.1.00.0807211219080.3305%40eeepc-johanness
In-Reply-To: <48841E28.9050903@op5.se>

```
Hi,

[Cc: list trimmed]

On Mon, 21 Jul 2008, Andreas Ericsson wrote:

> Thunderbird's threading is not so advanced as mutt's, so I can't break 
> threads so easily.
> 
> The most annoying part is that the timebased auto-delete from thunderbird
> means I get a new thread spawning in the middle of an old partially deleted
> one. It can be very confusing.

Last time I checked, Thunderbird was Open Source...

Ciao,
Dscho

```

## Johannes Schindelin, 2008-07-21 10:21

Subject: Re: [RFC] Stopping those fat "What's cooking in git.git" threads
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.1.00.0807211220150.3305@eeepc-johanness>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/alpine.DEB.1.00.0807211220150.3305%40eeepc-johanness
In-Reply-To: <20080721063332.GA15596@artemis.madism.org>

```
Hi,

On Mon, 21 Jul 2008, Pierre Habouzit wrote:

> On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 09:05:30PM +0000, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> > Miklos Vajna <vmiklos@frugalware.org> writes:
> > 
> > > So here is what I thought about: What about if everyone (except Junio,
> > > of course) would change the subject _and_ remove the In-Reply-To: header
> > > when replying to those mails?
> > >
> > > If those large threads just annoys a few people and most people are
> > > happy with the current situation then sorry for the noise.
> > 
> > I could make "What's cooking" not a follow-up to the previous issue,
> 
>   That'd be great, especially since it's trivial with decent MUAs to get
> all issues with a filter (l in mutt, kmail/thunderbird has what it
> needs, and I would be surprised if GNUS or pine cannot do that).

But what you lose is the ability to tell "this cooking came directly after 
that cooking".

And in the GMane interface, it is sure a nice thing to be able to go back 
and forth between cookings in a thread.

Ciao,
Dscho

```