A reason for threading errors in Mail.app

[Dennis Brown]

Alex,

If this is a standard, then as a point of etiquette, members of a  
list should a start new topic as a new mail message and not as a  
reply to an unrelated thread.

Dennis

On Jun 9, 2005, at 5:03 PM, Alex Tweedly wrote:

> Dennis Brown wrote:
>
>
>> Dan and Mac Mail.app users and anyone who replies to messages,
>>
>> I have noticed that Mail.app seems to put seemingly unrelated  
>> threads  into an existing thread at times.  I think I see a  
>> possible  explanation for this.  In addition to the usual method  
>> of looking at  the subject text, I think mail.app also  
>> fingerprints messages  somehow, so it knows when a reply is to  
>> that message --even if the  subject line is altered.  So if  
>> somebody starts a new thread by  replying to a thread I started or  
>> replied to, just to get the header  info, then replaces the body  
>> and subject lines to a new topic, my  Mail.app assumes it is still  
>> related to the original message.  I just  tested out this theory  
>> by replying to a thread I started, but I  changed everything about  
>> the message except the To: line.  Sure  enough the message came  
>> back threaded to the unrelated message I  started it from.
>>
>>
> That seems likely - though it's not particularly the mail.app -  
> it's been part of the mail standard for 20+ years.
>
> The headers for the mail I'm replying to included the following lines:
>
> Message-id: <86EB8A37-219C-4ED8-8688-559546E8A57E at writeme.com>
> In-reply-to: <C100E526-7D76-46EF-BD07-0CA31544B0CD at danshafer.com>
>
> and these are used (probably along with others) to decide what's a  
> thread and what isn't. (See rfc 822 published in 1982 !!)
>
>
>> A case of too smart for its own good!
>>
>>
> A case of doing exactly what the standard says it should do.
>
>
> -- 
> Alex Tweedly       http://www.tweedly.net
>
>
>
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