On Wednesday 23 April 2003 7:11 pm, James Mohr wrote:
On Wednesday 23 April 2003 01:51, Vince Littler wrote: <snip>
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. 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.
<snip and change of context>
Take your original message as an example. It has the message ID: <200304230051.45646.suse@archipelago.eclipse.co.uk> In Anders' reply to you, there is this header: In-Reply-To: <200304230051.45646.suse@archipelago.eclipse.co.uk>
Now we get to the core of it. Firstly, there is some sort of data structure within email which supports threading. But secondly, this data structure is _only_ [partially] visible at the receiving end, but it is controlled at the sending end, where it is not actually normally 'visible' to the sender as part of his Application Interface [ie email client]. My own take on this is that although the infrastructure is in place, the threading feature is not sufficiently mature for anything other than voluntary use because: 1] there is not sufficient agreement on the application of the feature [eg the issues raised by Anders] 2] hence there is no actual standard in place 3] hence there is no client support for a threading standard, particularly at the sending end [eg 'reply to current thread' and 'reply to new thread']. Now, if _all_ these issues were sorted out, I would feel that barking at newbies for violation of thread integrity would be justified. But let's face it, on the majority of clients there is no button to press or drop down dialog or anything to see what thread you are on or change it in any way - the user only has the reply button and the 'subject' fields to play with - I know, you told me how to do this - it is easy, but it is far from obvious. In other words, the problem is _not_ a User problem, it is a User Interface problem. As such, I think the constructive place for addressing the problem is with 1] 2] and 3] above. The hardest part is 1], but with this, 2] could be easy and a selection of clients supporting 3] would be totally possible. Until then, perfect threading will surely be a dream. <WordsThatWillHauntMeMode=ON> And if Linux flourishes the way we would all wish, we are going to see some newbie top posters who are into some very Microsoftish ways... <WordsThatWillHauntMeMode=OFF> regards Vince Littler