18.227 prolixity vs informativeness

               Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 18, No. 227.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
                   www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
                        www.princeton.edu/humanist/
                     Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu

   [1] From: "De Beer Jennifer <jad_at_sun.ac.za>" <jad_at_sun.ac.za> (17)
         Subject: RE: 18.223 prolixity or informativeness?

   [2] From: "De Beer Jennifer <jad_at_sun.ac.za>" <jad_at_sun.ac.za> (4)
         Subject: RE: 18.223 prolixity or informativeness?

   [3] From: Martin Holmes <mholmes_at_uvic.ca> (23)
         Subject: Re: 18.223 prolixity or informativeness?

--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 08:24:38 +0100
         From: "De Beer Jennifer <jad_at_sun.ac.za>" <jad_at_sun.ac.za>
         Subject: RE: 18.223 prolixity or informativeness?

Willard,

My guess is that longer subject-lines are an attempt to circumvent spam
filters, or at the very least are attempts to indicate some legitimacy
of the e-mail, so that it is not confused with spam. Of course,
depending on how one's e-mail client is configured, one is rarely ever
able to read the entire subject-line onscreen anyway.

Oddly, now that you mention it, I seem to be more prone to reading any
messages with long subject lines(!)

Best, Jennifer

   ---
Jennifer De Beer
Lecturer in Socio-Informatics
Centre for Knowledge Dynamics and Decision-making, Information Science,

Universiteit Stellenbosch University
http://www.sun.ac.za/infoscience/staff_jennifer.html
+27 (0)21 808 2071 (t)
+27 (0)21 808 2117 (f)

--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 08:25:30 +0100
         From: "De Beer Jennifer <jad_at_sun.ac.za>" <jad_at_sun.ac.za>
         Subject: RE: 18.223 prolixity or informativeness?

Postscriptum: it seems, having read a posting by Francois Lachance on
'effects of junk mail', which I've not been following BTW. So,
'prolixity' in essence is an 'effect of junk mail'.

Greetings, Jennifer

--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 08:26:42 +0100
         From: Martin Holmes <mholmes_at_uvic.ca>
         Subject: Re: 18.223 prolixity or informativeness?

Hi there,

At 12:05 AM 17/09/2004, you wrote:
> Now
>prolixity seems to have afflicted the subject-line, which can these days
>run to 2 or sometimes more lines. I'd recommend brevity. But fearing to be
>thought out-of-touch with the current fashions, I'll make this an enquiry.
>What is your sense of the matter?

Brief, vague subject lines are more likely to trip spam and virus filters,
or be ignored by people wading through masses of spam, so I find I'm making
an effort to give as much info in the subject as I can, while keeping it
relatively brief. Mail with "hi" or "file", or "re your message" as the
subject is very unlikely to be read nowadays.

Cheers,
Martin

______________________________________
Martin Holmes
University of Victoria Humanities Computing and Media Centre
mholmes_at_uvic.ca
martin_at_mholmes.com
mholmes_at_halfbakedsoftware.com
http://www.mholmes.com
http://web.uvic.ca/hcmc/
http://www.halfbakedsoftware.com
Received on Sun Sep 19 2004 - 03:57:50 EDT