Digest reading (OT) (was "Re: [Ti] Ti-Related")

[Mikael Byström]

William Scammell said:

>seriously though, i do pity the folks on digest mode who can't simply  
>use the infinite power of the delete key.

I don't understand digest readers, though I was one before . What's the
gain? With separate messages one can 
? autosort to folders 
? sort messages in any way the email app
? peruse a kill list
? peruse a VIP list
? mark specific interesting and useful messages, perhaps even
automatically trough filters
? search messages and not having to wade trough irrelevant stuff
? get rid of spam (any spam, including ongoing offtopic messages. Check
out SpamSieve).
? Show HTML messages correctly
? easily reply to a specific message
? replying without the forgetting to use the correct subject (avoiding
embarrasing "digest" replies)

As far as I'm concerned digests are a dodo. Any advantage a digest may
have is outcompeted IMHO by the listed advantages and possibly some more.
So unless you can't take the lows with the highs, the bads with goods on
a specific mailing list, then most likely you'd be better off unsubbing
from the digests and resubscribing with regular messages.

Possibly, one could limit oneself to sending offtopic less times than on
topic in order to maintain some kind of balance.