[X4U] Re: hijacking threads

[Stroller]

On 21 Jan 2007, at 14:10, keith_w wrote:
> Stroller wrote:
>> On 20 Jan 2007, at 14:06, jelmore at elmoredesign.com wrote:
>>> Looking at a message source, I don't see any header that would  
>>> indicate
>>> that a subject belongs to a thread with a different subject. So  
>>> how is
>>> that done?
>
>
>>  From the message you replied to:
>> In-Reply-To:     <20070119222529.1611387305 at smtp.mac.com>
>> References:     <cf4239a3a677dfe8f96b394b441e507d at comcast.net>  
>> <515A4AB4-10D2-4E5A-9111-26B194CED62A at earthlink.net>  
>> <6E0F93B2-421E-41FC-936A-8BBD7C224063 at mac.com>  
>> <13fd79f6e16d5556fd2c34ffb9731619 at comcast.net> <C668A83E-56DC-47F1- 
>> BEFF-E2FF57EBDC62 at speakeasy.net>  
>> <20070119222529.1611387305 at smtp.mac.com>
>
> When I click on any of the above colored links, all I get is a fresh
> email/message 'Compose' window, with that link address in the "To"  
> line.
> The same thing happens to all of the links you include above.

Hi,

Sorry - these are not links. They are lines from the headers of the  
email message that jelmore replied to. I think it's simply because  
the message IDs have ats ("@") in them that your mail program (and  
prolly mine) are underlining them and treating them as email links.  
That's ok, really - your mail client wouldn't normally expect to be  
seeing message Ids in the body of the message (and of course it hides  
the ones in the headers of the message).

If you look at the long headers or raw source of Tim Collier's  
message (the one he wrote at 20 January 2007 13:33:19 GMT) then you  
would see those lines amongst all the rest. Sorry, I don't know how  
to display the full raw headers in the Mozilla mail client  
(Thunderbird?), but there'll be an option for it somewhere.

Perhaps if I include some more of the headers they'll make a little  
more sense:

   Return-Path: <x4u-bounces at listserver.themacintoshguy.com>
   Received: from pop3.myrealbox.com [151.155.5.201]
         by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-6.2.5)
         for stroller at localhost (single-drop); Sat, 20 Jan 2007  
13:36:53 +0000 (GMT)
   Received: from listserver.themacintoshguy.com not authenticated  
[68.178.107.253]        by smtp-send.myrealbox.com with NetMail SMTP  
Agent $Revision: 1.6 $ on Linux;
         Sat, 20 Jan 2007 06:33:48 -0700
  ...
(more stuff showing how this message has travelled)
...
   Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v752.3)
   In-Reply-To: <20070119222529.1611387305 at smtp.mac.com>
   References: <cf4239a3a677dfe8f96b394b441e507d at comcast.net>
         <515A4AB4-10D2-4E5A-9111-26B194CED62A at earthlink.net>
         <6E0F93B2-421E-41FC-936A-8BBD7C224063 at mac.com>
         <13fd79f6e16d5556fd2c34ffb9731619 at comcast.net>
         <C668A83E-56DC-47F1-BEFF-E2FF57EBDC62 at speakeasy.net>
         <20070119222529.1611387305 at smtp.mac.com>
   Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
   Message-Id: <42479F71-1EFE-49FB-90FA-7630B8A8EE33 at mac.com>
   Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
   From: Tim Collier <timjcollier at mac.com>
   Subject: Re: [X4U] Re: hijacking threads
   Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2007 08:33:19 -0500
   To: "A place to discuss Mac OS X for the casual user."  
<x4u at listserver.themacintoshguy.com>
   X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.752.3)
   X-BeenThere: x4u at listserver.themacintoshguy.com
   X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.4
   Precedence: list
   Reply-To: "A place to discuss Mac OS X for the casual user."  
<x4u at listserver.themacintoshguy.com>
   List-Id: "A place to discuss Mac OS X for the casual user."
         <x4u.listserver.themacintoshguy.com>
.. (more list related stuff)
   Sender: x4u-bounces at listserver.themacintoshguy.com


> That being the case for me, how is the following statement true?
>
>> From these one can ascertain all replies previously made in a thread.

Perhaps it's more accurate to say "one's _email client_ can ascertain  
all replies previously made in a thread", but the important part is  
that each email message we send has a "Message-Id: " header line (I  
think this is generated by the SMTP server). If you click on reply-to  
a message then a "proper" mail program adds that message ID to the  
references lines then it's easy to figure out the order of messages,  
and even to build a tree-like display of threading. Including all the  
previous message IDs in the references lines allows the email program  
to build the tree even if some of the messages are missing (due to  
the vagaries of email systems & servers).

If you ignore the fact that the stuff in the "References: " section  
looks like links or email addresses this makes perfect sense. Sorry  
if I haven't explained it very well, tho'.

Stroller.