How threading works (was Re: Root Cause Re: 202401102221.AYC Re: Streamline The CG-NAT Re: 202401100645.AYC Re: IPv4 address block)

Mon Jan 15 06:29:05 UTC 2024

----- Original Message -----
> From: "William Herrin" <bill at herrin.us>

> Respectfully, your MUA is not the only MUA. Others work differently.
> 
> GMail, for example, follows the message IDs as you say but assumes
> that if you change the subject line in your reply (more than adding
> "Re:") then you intend to start a new thread from that point in the
> discussion. It groups messages accordingly.
> 
> This is not an unreasonable expectation: if you merely want to
> continue the current conversation without going off on a new tangent
> then there's no need for a different subject line.

Maybe it's not.

Looking at threads in NANOGs piper, though, it's easy to see threads where
the Subject line evolves to follow the conversation, without dropping people
who still want to participate in it.

The fact that the "(was: old subject)" convention continues in good service
to this day, *even though no mailer does that for you* (so far as I'm aware)
suggests that people will put in the effort, to me at least.

The number of times when I've consciously wanted to break a reply chain -- and
usually was not provided with the facility by my mailer -- is much smaller than
the number when I wanted it to continue.  The only mailer I remember being able
to do it in, really, is mutt, where you could get all the headers into vi, and
delete In-Reply-To:.

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                  Baylink                       jra at baylink.com
Designer                     The Things I Think                       RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates       http://www.bcp38.info          2000 Land Rover DII
St Petersburg FL USA      BCP38: Ask For It By Name!           +1 727 647 1274