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Issue names



If possible, could people please not rename issues mid-stream? Since
probably only half of the people on this list seem to reliably use an
In-Reply-To field in their message, the issue name is the only thing
tying a conversation together into a single thread for filing purposes.

In my view, the issue names should just be unique identifiers which are
perhaps originally mnemonic, but whose most important aspect is that
they let me reliably select a set of messages and know that if I've read
all those messages, I am up to date in that conversation thread. When
the proposed function AREF-1D was renamed, for example, the issue name
was retained for the sake of those trying to track the conversation.
The name change from TRACE-CLOS to TRACE-FUNCTION-ONLY left me with two
files containing half a conversation each. It took a while for me to 
figure out what happened.

If someone absolutely thinks that some issue name is so awful that it is
keeping them from getting work done on the issue and that only a name
change will solve the problem, I'd personally appreciate it if they
could make the renaming -very- prominent, mentioning both the old name
and the new name. eg, by a subject line like:

  Subject: TRACE-FUNCTION-ONLY (formerly TRACE-CLOS)

It would be helpful if Masinter's occassional issue summaries would
mention the obsolete names, too, just for reference.

Thanks.