* James Mohr (suse_mailing_list@jimmo.com) [030423 10:51]:
I was referring to the mailing-list/server software. It has to be done at that level because there is no other way to keep track of of individual messages. Each message has an identifier which is at least relative to the mailing-list/server software (if not "world unique"). So replies are in references to this ID. The client has be able to recognize that fact in order to sort/organized the messages.
Actually ezmlm-idx, the list manager we use, doesn't rely on message IDs or reference headers for exactly this reason. All of the threading in the archives is done by normalizing the subject. For example, if I wanted to get this thread I could email suse-linux-e-thread.141961@suse.com where 141961 is the ezmlm message number of one of the postings in the thread. This pretty much always works correctly since the "thread hijacker" would have completely changed the subject. In contrast, hypermail (which creates the html archives), uses the message IDs for threading so the "hijacking" is always seen there. -- -ckm