Oz Travellers replied:

Ummm maybe I am just being blonde but this is at the top of your post

David - follow up Message No. wanted PostID: 41874

and on the left side where I clicked to read the messages the same number 41874

Carolyn

Wayne (NSW) replied:

Arkay,

I assume that you are reading this reply as a email that has been sent to you.

At the very top is the POST ID, in this case 41874.

If you then go to the part just before the start of the reply from me you will see "Response On line". Click here and the thread will appear.

I hope this helps.

Wayne

Robin replied:

Have had similar issue Arkay , when look at my email list summary . It shows a number of posts but without reference to the message number.

E.G. this is what appears under hotmail -->

" ExplorOz Forum FollowupID: 479582 to AnswerID: 218975 fr... Feb 1 5KB "

(the above contains two fields "from and subject")

Whilst you can open each email in turn and it will display message number its not the most efficent approach, when you have a number of replies.

There are compromizes to appreciate in each of these things and its good to ask the question ->

What is the user trying to get out of his email summary ? And what is less important and can be left to when the actual email is opened.

I believe knowing which message the email refers to should have highest priority.

But whats constitutes "knowing" ?

The current system makes a direct connection to your previous posting(message or answer) however that connection is effectivily often devalued because know one would remember there last answer ID number anyway, so little real information is conveyed.

You could apply this logic to the actual message number as well and while the connection with a message number (post id in this forum) is limited, it is remembered more than an answer ID number, particularly as the more replies you get will re-inforce its memory.

You could then say , why not display the message title, as this would enable most to clearly identify the message . Issue here is that the limited text spaces as per my above example gives little room for more than a few words.

So in summary for this post I think following would convey more useful information to the user and takes up the same number of character spaces

Current way
---------------
FollowupID: 479582 to AnswerID: 218975 fr

Alternative way
------------------
Message 41784 " David - follow up Messa ...............


The value of the alternative way is devalued also as a message becomes longer with many replies and further as a message breaks off into another subect , however what it is being compared with is a number which if it is an answer ID number has almost no connections .

Robin Miller

ExplorOz Team - David replied:

Arkay,

I understand what you are saying maybe I could simply add the main PostID at the beginning of the subject so somthing along the line of:

PostID: XXXXXX - FollowupID: 479720 to AnswerID: 219188.

Would that solve it for you. Then you could sort on subject and the system should put the element of the system together. Let me know - I can make this change easliy.