Exploring discussion lists: steps and directions

ABSTRACT

This paper describes some new facilities for exploring archived email-based discussion lists. The facilities exploit some specific properties of email messages to obtain improved archive overviews, and then use new tree visualizations, developed for the purpose, to obtain thread overviews and mechanisms to aid in the coherent reading of threads. We consider these approaches to be limited, but useful, approximations to more ideal facilities; a final section suggests directions for further work in this area.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.4 INFORMATION SYSTEMS APPLICATIONS
      H.4.3 Communications Applications
          Subjects: Bulletin boards

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.4 INFORMATION SYSTEMS APPLICATIONS
      H.4.3 Communications Applications
          Subjects: Information browsers; Electronic mail

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors

Keywords:
discussion list, email, email archive, narrowtree, on-line forum, persistent conversation, thread, treetable