On Wed, 2003-04-23 at 01:51, Vince Littler wrote:
No, the point about a standard is not moot. If Mutt implements a certain something and calls it threading and Outlook implements something else and calls that threading, which is right? If I reply to a post and quote [and I make a _subjective_ judgement that the topic is changed] and I only change the subject line, then who is anybody to tell me that I have not changed the thread. And who is anybody to argue if I say that Mutt is broken because it does not recognise my new thread.
But that is a valid method, I don't think anyone has argued about that. I call it thread drift, I don't know if there's a common term for it. When a thread drifts from the original topic, someone alters the subject to "foo (was: Re. bar)" and it goes on from there. That's not hijacking. In fact, hijacking isn't all that important in email lists, it's more a concern in web forums, where you have separate pages for each subject. If suddenly someone steals the discussion to move to a completely unrelated subject it's a real pain, but in email it's easier to sort and sift.
Without a standard, there is nothing to argue about one way or the other, there is no such thing as a thread and this whole thread is a void.
Don't think I am arguing against it, not for one moment. I do see the benefits, threading would be a good thing. I think that given a standard, we can look to mail programs supporting 'reply on existing thread' and 'reply on new thread'.
I think the opposite is a bigger problem. If someone jumps in to a thread with a complete change of subject, I can deal with that easily enough, but if someone replies "on subject" but "out of thread" by creating a new email with no "In-Reply-To" headers, it's more confusing. That, to me, is a much bigger problem than thread hijacking.
And oh yes, the point of all of this. I think someone /dev/null'ed me. Now I have laid out my philosophy above, I would be grateful to know this explicitly, so I don't spend time answering their questions.
If someone filtered you to /dev/null, how would they be able to read your question asking them to state so? :)