[X4U] List Threading and subject changes

[Eugene]

On Fri, Jul 08, 2005 at 07:44:58PM CDT, revDAVE <coolcat at hostalive.com> wrote:
: 
: On 6/9/05 11:06 AM, "Steve Self" <steveself at mac.com> wrote:
: 
: > Hey, can you all simply click-n-hold on the Reply-To address and then
: > select New Message to start a new topic on the list?
: > 
: > This rather than the lazy habit of hitting reply and then just
: > changing the subject...
: > Cause threading mixes in your lazy-new-topic with the prior topic.
: > 
: > Let's keep threading workable rather than messed up due to laziness
: > and uniformed work flow methods.
: 
: This is interesting ... I'm sure I have been guilty of this myself in the
: past - however I am not sure how or why this happens.  Is there some hidden
: "threading" feature that messes up the subject lines that I do not know
: about?
: 
: I am using entourage and I personally have never seen a problem myself ...
: Maybe I am not using  some feature? Can you explain what the symptoms are
: and why they happen? I looked in the source code of this e-mail and also the
: contextual menu choices and did not see any particular commands relating to
: threading...?

Current mail standards tag messages with a unique identifier set within
the "Message-ID" mail header.  When responding to messages, mail clients
not only set another unique Message-ID for the reply message, but they
also include the Message-ID of the "original" message in another mail
header (usually "In-Reply-To" and/or sometimes "References").  This
chain (actually, it's a "tree" for comp sci people) of messages and
replies is known collectively as a "thread".  And each message can stand
on its own, or be a reply to another message, which can be a reply to
another message, and so on, etc.

These unique identifiers are mostly invisible to end users, but their
effects are displayed as threads in mail apps.  However, not knowing how
things work behind the scenes, users think that threads start with a new
"Subject" line.  For the most part, that's what normally happens.  But
often on mailing lists, users choose to "reply" to a message and change
the "Subject" line, thinking that this starts a new thread.  However,
mail clients see that users have chosen to "reply", which specifically
means to reply to that message yet remain in that thread of discussion.
So it maintains all of the necessary Message-ID in all the usual places.
Even when the user changes the "Subject" line, it's still part of that
thread.  It's clearly a case of users thinking one way, and mail apps
thinking another way.

There are two solutions, both of which suck in their own right:

1) Train users to learn what "Reply" really means, and to better
configure their mail clients to recognize mailing lists.

2) Add checks in mail programs so that if they notice users choosing to
reply to a list message but changing the subject, then they prompt users
and asking them to start a new thread or not.

This is probably the only time I'm gonna spend this much time writing up
something this long on this subject.  Feel free to save this message and
repost it when other people ask... because there will always be other
people that ask...


-- 
Eugene
http://www.coxar.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/