Because it did get passed over when I posted a response
and I needed the help. So don't be a jerk!
Yet you could not provide a link to that other thread as a convenient
reference to other potential helpers? Perhaps you really did want only
Milly to respond but it is rare that someone seeking help would restrict
the scope of volunteers to exclude everyone else. Trying to figure out
a link might not be easy and that's why the discussion is usually kept
within the same thread.
How do you know it got passed over? You certainly weren't patient.
Some folks post to newsgroups thinking they are chat rooms and expect an
instant response. Newsgroups are not chat rooms. Propagation of a post
could take 4 hours, or longer, before it migrates to all the news
servers. Not everyone hangs at their computer volunteering 100% of their
free time. We don't work for you. Most come and go to periodically
(but not constantly) check on new posts and replies when they happen to
have time and the inclination. This isn't a newsgroup manned 24x7 by
paid professionals dedicated to providing you and others with free
technical support. Neither is it a chat room with instant gratification
by users sitting and waiting at their screens. It's a come-n-go
newsgroup. You might not get a response for hours or even a day or two.
My guess is you prior post was with subject "Cannot delete message from
Outlook 2k Outbox" at:
(if your news client is subscribed to the microsoft.public.outlook
newsgroup)
(if your news client is not currently subscribed to that newsgroup)
http://snurl.com/3488
(if you used Microsoft's Community web interface)
http://snurl.com/3486
(if you want to see and refer to it in Google Groups)
So, see, there are lots of ways to refer back to your original
discussion (although I used shorter URLs) should you decide to slice it
up across disconnected threads but still provide a convenient reference
to the original discussion. Your first post was at 11:38 AM and Milly's
reply in the same thread was at 11:52 AM. Pretty good turnaround for
voluntary peer support. Be very happy the response was that fast. You
waited all of 5 hours before starting a new thread on the same subject.
That's a short interval. This is a newsgroup, not a chat room where
participants expect instant gratification because they are waiting at
their screens rather than occasionally popping into the newgroup to see
what's new. You post, you wait. Keeping the discussion in one thread
for ease of reference and continuity isn't just my opinion. Milly's own
signature says, "... keep the discussion intact." Slicing it up into
multiple threads is not keeping it intact.
The point of setting a thread with a watch flag is so you can check if
there has been any further activity to that thread. After some interval
from the last post to that thread, the user will probably decide to turn
the watch flag off (i.e., they no longer continue monitoring that
thread). Don't know about other users, but once I set the watch flag on
a thread then it gets monitored until 5 to 10 days after the last post
(i.e., if another post shows up in the thread, then the 5-10 interval
gets measured from that last added post). Of course, those regularly
visiting newsgroups don't usually use web interfaces to newsgroups
(webnews) because they cannot set a watch flag on a topic (i.e., there's
no way to monitor the thread). Could be you are unaware that news
clients can watch threads so they can be monitored for however long the
user dictates. Just because 5 hours passed doesn't mean Milly or
whomever was interested in that thread wasn't still watching it. It
means they have their own life to lead and will come back later to check
on their monitored threads and new posts. Webnews usually provides a
piss poor interface to newsgroups. I realize that some users are forced
to use the webnews interface because their company has blocked NNTP
traffic for news clients (because quite often newsgroup use is not work
related and represents a waste of the employee's time and a waste of the
employer's bandwidth). So maybe you're stuck with using the webnews
interface. I've used both Google Groups and Microsoft's Community
newsgroup and both of them suck for lack of features.
