Re: [PATCH v2 1/3] Documentation/MyFirstContribution: recommend shallow threading

[Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>]

On Wed, Jun 03, 2026 at 10:09:39PM +0200, Kristoffer Haugsbakk wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 3, 2026, at 08:58, Patrick Steinhardt wrote:
> > The "MyFirstContribution" document recommends the use of deep threading:
> > every cover letter of subsequent iterations shall be linked to the cover
> > letter of the preceding version. The result of this is that eventually,
> > threads with many versions are getting nested so deep that it becomes
> > hard to follow.
> >
> > Adapt the recommendation to instead propose shallow threading: instead
> > of linking the cover letter to the previous cover letter, the user is
> > supposed to always link it to the first cover letter. This still makes
> > it easy to follow the iterations, but has the benefit of nesting to a
> > much shallower level.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>
> > ---
> >  Documentation/MyFirstContribution.adoc | 4 ++--
> >  1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> >[snip]
> 
> Only today did I notice that your eleven-version git-history(1) series
> uses this style. (Or: today I noticed that it’a thing)
> 
> https://lore.kernel.org/git/20250819-b4-pks-history-builtin-v1-0-9b77c32688fe@pks.im/
> 
> That would have had a bad rightward drift with the usual reply to
> previous version style.
> 
> I’ve been reading Lore on Safari on mobile and some threads go so deep
> that the replies just become unclickable backticks. *Huh?* Well I can
> use the Next/Previous buttons and maybe there is a way to make it work,
> but I’ve just given up on those right-going subthreads. ;)
> 
> ... and I also don’t see any drawbacks to that threading, using that
> series as an example. It looks just as comprehensible as the usual
> style.

Yeah. It doesn't matter much for patch series that don't require many
iterations. But eventually I feel like it gets out-of-hand to have the
deep nesting.

Patrick