newsgroup vs. mailing list

[Alex Rice]

On Oct 27, 2003, at 1:35 AM, Robert Brenstein wrote:

> That threading feature has been in earlier versions of Eudora as well. 
> Just option-click on any subject in the list and Eudora groups all 
> emails in that thread. The only problem is that some people insist on 
> changing the subject as the thread goes on :(

Then the mail client is not doing message threading correctly. Each 
email message has a header named in-reply-to, for example:

  In-Reply-To: 	<20031024140549.D01C193011E at mail.runrev.com>

This in-reply-to head is what is used to create a threaded view of 
messages. This is how Apple Mail.app does it. I believe the original 
Netscape Mail used to do it this way.

For example: I'm looking at a thread "revSpeak & Windows". In it are 
messages subject "revSpeak & Windows", "RE: revSpeak & Windows" and 
"Windows sound Help".

Now it also appears that some people (eric hansen?) are hitting reply 
to a list message, then changing the topic *entirely*, as a shortcut 
for composing a new topic message to the list. This looks bad in a 
threaded view because based on the in-reply-to headers, it's thread, 
but the message content does not make a coherent thread.

Alex Rice <alex at mindlube.com> | Mindlube Software | 
<http://mindlube.com>

what a waste of thumbs that are opposable
to make machines that are disposable  -Ani DiFranco