Re: some replies aren't really replies

From: Paul Haldane <Paul.Haldane_at_newcastle.ac.uk_at_hypermail-project.org>
Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 18:20:50 +0100 (GMT)
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.95-960729.990517180851.19236C-100000_at_carr6.ncl.ac.uk>

On Mon, 17 May 1999, Christina Williams Heikkila wrote:

> One problem with using the In-reply-to message ids to determine threading
> is that many people (including myself) keep a large mail inbox. When we
> want to send an email to a person, we just scroll up to one they sent to
> us, and just reply to it, changing the subject line. This creates threads
> where there shouldn't be.
>
> I don't know if this has come up in the past, or if there's any conceivable
> way to work with this - I'm just throwing it out here in case anyone's
> given it much thought.

My usual thought is 'I wish people wouldn't do that' :->

In-reply-to: is our best chance at getting proper threading. We _can_ guess at threads by comparing subject lines but that tends not to give the same information about the flow of the conversation.

Hypermail could be told to 'break' threads if the subjects of the messages don't match (allowing for front-loading of re: etc) but this would break things for real threads where the subject line has changed halfway through the conversation (to better reflect the topic under discussion).

Go on - do us all a favour and only use reply for real replies. Use your mail program's address book functions to remember addresses.

Paul Received on Tue 18 May 1999 01:19:46 PM GMT