I am drowning in emails

[Dean Gibson]

You did the right thing by changing the subject (see below). However, my 
GENERAL opinion on people replying to a digest message is somewhat 
harsh, so if you like digests, you may not want to my comments below the 
quoted message.

However, what is needed for GnuCash in my opinion, is two mailing lists:

 1. One for accounting questions, that could be answered anywhere.
 2. One for questions about GnuCash, assuming the user understands
    accounting.

In particular, about a week ago I posted two questions about GnuCash 
specifics that required simple "yes" or "no" answers.  They quickly got 
lost in a sea of accounting questions, and I thought they were "lost 
forever."  However, several days later, a knowledgeable person (Geert) 
did see them and answered (thanks, Geert!), but the problem is, other 
such questions can easily be missed.  This is what the PostgreSQL group 
does;  they have a separate mailing list for general SQL questions.

On 2015-02-23 09:07, Matthew Lybanon wrote:
> I was faced with the same issue.  I found (don’t remember the details) that I was able to request a “digest,” so that instead of getting another email every 5 minutes (OK, maybe only every 10 or 15 minutes), I get a few messages a day, each containing a group of mailing list posts.  There is a summary at the top, so I can scan the subjects and see whether or not I’m interested in reading any of the messages.
>
> I am replying to one of these digests, which is why you don’t see a message that I am replying to (I could have copied and pasted, but the subject line identifies the topic).

I understand the desire to reduce the amount of eMails that one 
receives, although I'm not convinced of its effectiveness.  I don't have 
any problem with people RECEIVING digests.  I do have a problem with 
people REPLYING to them:

 1. First, the MAJORITY of those who reply, FORGET to change the
    subject.  As a result, everyone has to read at least part of the
    message in order to see if they are interested.  Ugh.  That's
    passing the burden to everyone else on the list.  The whole PURPOSE
    of an "on topic" subject line, is to allow readers to SELECT which
    messages they want to read.
 2. Second, if one replies to a message in a digest, they have no idea
    if someone else has made a similar reply, after the digest was
    constructed.  That just wastes everyone's time.

Now, here comes the harsh part:  I consider replying to a digest 
(without changing the subject and checking recent responses, to be a 
self-centered act.  As a result, I IGNORE all messages with a digest 
subject line.  This also has the salutary effect of causing me to skip 
possible irate responses to this message ...