In a message dated 7/22/2006 1:52:37 PM Eastern Standard Time, lklein@mindspring.com writes: <<Now, now, no shouting. <vbg> >> LOL--that was emphasis--not shouting. I'd never shout at my fellow admins. What would my Quaker ancestors Patience and Silence think of me? <g> <<Joan, remind us (yes, again!) of when and why we should consider editing in the subject line. >> In my opinon the subject should almost never be changed--but when a poster enters a subject such as "genealogy" "searching" or "looking" or something of that nature, it can be very helpful to add something such as: Searching -- for Mary Smith in Gloucester County, NJ in 1850. I'm must more in favor of just adding a bit to a poster's unclear or too general subject than I am for changing it completely or shortening it. <<I fervently pray that the subject line with be shortened on the new boards. Now if there was only a way to force them to include the who, what, where, and when. ;-) >> I think it is somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 characters (which is about what it is now) and I'm not condoning long subjects--the briefer and more to the point the better BUT I'm just saying they are pretty much the author's choice. I guess my point is that if the powers that be overseeing the board development wanted to limit subjects to a shorter limit--they'd have done so. So the subject as long as it is not something that just doesn't fit the post -- is pretty much the poster's choice. We can't make all posts perfect nor should we try to. Always err on the side of the author--that can't be repeated often enough. ESPECIALLY (emphasizing again) if the author disagrees with a change we've made to his posts. One situation where I can see changing the subject is where a part of a thread that doesn't fit the original is being broken off and moved to a new thread--it might be a good thing to also "adjust" the subject lines to fit the thread rather than just carry over what was automatically picked up in the replies. Joan

JYoung6180@aol.com wrote: ><<Now, now, no shouting. <vbg> >> > >LOL--that was emphasis--not shouting. I'd never shout at my fellow admins. >What would my Quaker ancestors Patience and Silence think of me? <g> > I don't know, but I'm glad I don't have that to live up to! I'm certainly the antithesis of patience and generally not very silent. ;-) >In my opinon the subject should almost never be changed--but when a poster >enters a subject such as "genealogy" "searching" or "looking" or something of >that nature, it can be very helpful to add something such as: Searching -- >for Mary Smith in Gloucester County, NJ in 1850. I'm must more in favor of >just adding a bit to a poster's unclear or too general subject than I am for >changing it completely or shortening it. > Okay, I think we're in the same ball park. :-) One requirement I would like to see made of posters to a locality board would be to include locality in the subject line. Adding the "Where" is probably the most frequent edit I make to a subject line. When someone posts to an old thread (invariably to a message with a subject like "help me find my ancestors" <eyeroll>), it takes me forever to go back to the original post to make sure it really belonged on that locality list. And it's a 50/50 chance that the post actually did belong there. <Beginning of rant> And speaking of that, does anyone actually check if an admin is doing a good job? I'm constantly amazed by what I see in old posts on my own and other boards. <end of rant> Lynne