[X4U] List Threading and subject changes

[Richard Gilmore]

I hit reply so as to continue this thread hopefully I did that right. I've
been guilty as well of hitting reply and changing the subject line thinking
it would change the thread. I will try to change this behaviour in the
future. 

I might not be using Entourage right however though because none of my mail
from this list and others comes grouped according to thread that I can tell.
Can I make Entourage do this or is something Mail does? It would make
sorting my easier.

Thanx

Richard




On 9/7/05 1:04 PM, "revDAVE" <coolcat at hostalive.com> wrote:

> On 7/9/05 1:53 AM, "Eugene" <list-themacintoshguy at fsck.net> wrote:
> 

>> 
>> 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...
>