I never read by thread or topic, only chronologically by number, which was a deal breaker in trying to find a replacement group site when Yahoo broke.

I preface the following with the sincere statement that it is not intended as provocative or nasty or saying "you shouldn't do this", but out of genuine curiosity:  Why do you do this?

It is becoming rarer and rarer for absolute message number to retain primacy anywhere as far as user interfaces go.  Some have eliminated it entirely.  Topic view, with the individual messages ordered either "newest to oldest" or "oldest to newest", depending on one's needs/preferences, is generally a really fast way of zeroing in on where to pick up on any conversation unless you left off a very long time ago.

Even if this feature comes back, and I suspect it will here, anyway, your chosen method is very likely "to break" if you ever have to move elsewhere, or even potentially in the future here.  Topic view takes so much of the load off cognitively when it comes to dealing with ongoing conversations.

I am genuinely trying to understand how completely unthreaded message view, even with absolute message numbers available for reference, could increase ease and speed over a threaded/topic view.  There's got to be something I'm missing, but I have no idea what that is.

Brian

Messages are the sole opinion of the author. Especially the fishy ones.

I wish I could shut up, but I can't, and I won't. - Desmond Tutu

Mark,

         This will almost certainly help, but might I ask whether the subject matching is "perfectly exact" or fuzzy?  There are many instances on some of the groups I frequent where someone will accidentally have knocked off, say the "R" on "Re:", or something similar but where the rest of the subject is still completely intact.  I can't think of a single instance where this should not result in the message being threaded into an existing active subject (and where I know that the message does not have threading information before you'd even get this far into the algorithm).

         This brings up a related, interesting, and almost certain to be controversial topic:  I have seen e-mail clients that thread when threading information is available in the message header regardless of whether or not someone has changed the subject when the message originates via use of "reply" which causes the threading information to be included.  The only way one escapes a conversation/thread to form a new thread via e-mail is by creating a new message, using a new subject, and employing "cut and paste" if desired to transfer any context from a thread that one may be launching a spin-off from.   Has that ever been considered here, or could it be?

         Most of the thread splitting I'm observing and fixing is the direct result of user ignorance of threading conventions and netiquette.  They treat the subject as an extension of the message body, and will prepend or append something to it that's meant as an embellishment, but with no idea that this would trigger an entirely new thread.  I believe that some of this also arises because some e-mail clients thread strictly on header information when that's available and ignore the subject altogether, so they're accustomed to seeing mixed subjects under one conversation thread.

          There could be an argument made that this would be the best way for Groups.io to thread based on my limited experiences on the groups I frequent.  Others, of course, may differ, but they also may strongly agree.  I'm really curious about what other people are experiencing with regard to users changing subjects willy-nilly with "cute bits" when the actual message they're sending is clearly just the next in the line for an existing conversation/topic/thread.

Brian

There should have been a "tend" before that "to be much easier to read."

Mark,

           If you do decide to go this route as far as the presentation side of things goes, and I'd fully support that, would you please consider using a serifed font like Times New Roman or similar for the "convert to" font?

           There is actually a lot of formal research out there on reading that clearly indicates that most readers find serifed fonts (and "normally serifed," not some of the extreme exercises in design that exist) to be much easier to read than non-serifed fonts.  As you can see, Times New Roman, in 14-point, is slightly smaller than Helvetica is in the same point size, so you'd have to trial both the font chosen and the point size to arrive at something that you consider suitable.  I would be happy to make recommendations if those are welcome for candidate fonts.

Brian

Mark,

           I am adopting Zen for the moment, and have been.  This will likely be a low priority fix even if it's doable, but I'd still strongly suggest you put it on your list if it is simply because there exist a massive number of existing thread splits in groups that have been around a while that many other than myself feel almost duty bound to correct for the historical record and ease of searching.   Please don't make us have to "become perpetually additionally Zen about it" unless it really is a herculean task for you (in which case, I think we all understand priorities must be set).

Brian

I hovered over the link in an email message and the URL with #4061331
shows up. I know that we don't have that many messages ...

Messages are the sole opinion of the author. Especially the fishy ones.

I wish I could shut up, but I can't, and I won't. - Desmond Tutu