Please do not use Reply for new topics

[odoepner]

Hello,

I noticed that people often start new topics by "replying" to an unrelated email from NSLUG and editing the subject line. This messes up threads. The emails regarding the new topic will show up within the (unrelated) thread of the email that the poster used to "conveniently" reply to.

You may not notice this if you don't use a threaded view in your email client. But many email clients (e.g. Thunderbird, pine, mutt, Sylpheed) offer this useful feature.

And the online "forum" style view of the NSLUG mailing list at http://www.nabble.com/nSLUG-f21235.html uses a threaded view, too.

Please compose a new email to "[e-mail]" when you start a new topic / thread and use reply only to actually reply to an existing discussion.

thank you
Oliver

[Daniel Morrison-2]

Hello,

Can you explain why this happens? I mean, it sounds like a bug. Gmail
certainly doesn't have trouble threading messges properly.

Is there a message ID that is preserved by all mail clients when
replying to a message, and which other mail clients/the archiving
software uses to thread, in preference to the subject? Some invention
that was intended to "make life easier" by allowing threads to
continue over subject changes, but which is instead now imposing more
rules on members?

Sorry if I'm coming across a bit blunt -- I really want to learn how
this works. I noticed in a mailman list archive that I maintain that
some messages seemed to be children of unrelated "parent" messages,
and would like to learn why this happens. Also, because I quite
regularly just reply to a message and change the subject (not so much
for NSLUG, but in my everyday email), as I was under the impression
that it was equivalent to starting an entirely new message, but
without needing to type in the To: addresses once again.

If there's some specific documentation on this, feel free to just
point me to it.

Thanks,

-D.

2009/10/9 odoepner <odoepner@...>:

>
> Hello,
>
> I noticed that people often start new topics by "replying" to an unrelated
> email from NSLUG and editing the subject line. This messes up threads. The
> emails regarding the new topic will show up within the (unrelated) thread of
> the email that the poster used to "conveniently" replied to.
>
> You may not notice this if you don't use a threaded view in your email
> client. But many email clients (e.g. Thunderbird, pine, mutt, Sylpheed)
> offer this useful feature.
>
> And the online "forum" style view of the NSLUG maling list at
> http://www.nabble.com/nSLUG-f21235.html
> http://www.nabble.com/nSLUG-f21235.html  uses a threaded view, too.
>
> Please compose a new email to "nslug@..." when you start a new topic
> / thread and use reply only to actually reply to an existing discussion.

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[Jason Kenney-2]

Not an expert but I'd guess it would be these two items from the full
header listing:

In-Reply-To: <25820486.post@...>
References: <25820486.post@...>


Jason

On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 11:56 AM, Daniel Morrison <draker@...> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Can you explain why this happens? I mean, it sounds like a bug. Gmail
> certainly doesn't have trouble threading messges properly.
>
> Is there a message ID that is preserved by all mail clients when
> replying to a message, and which other mail clients/the archiving
> software uses to thread, in preference to the subject? Some invention
> that was intended to "make life easier" by allowing threads to
> continue over subject changes, but which is instead now imposing more
> rules on members?
>
> Sorry if I'm coming across a bit blunt -- I really want to learn how
> this works. I noticed in a mailman list archive that I maintain that
> some messages seemed to be children of unrelated "parent" messages,
> and would like to learn why this happens. Also, because I quite
> regularly just reply to a message and change the subject (not so much
> for NSLUG, but in my everyday email), as I was under the impression
> that it was equivalent to starting an entirely new message, but
> without needing to type in the To: addresses once again.
>
> If there's some specific documentation on this, feel free to just
> point me to it.
>
> Thanks,
>
> -D.
>
> 2009/10/9 odoepner <odoepner@...>:
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I noticed that people often start new topics by "replying" to an unrelated
>> email from NSLUG and editing the subject line. This messes up threads. The
>> emails regarding the new topic will show up within the (unrelated) thread of
>> the email that the poster used to "conveniently" replied to.
>>
>> You may not notice this if you don't use a threaded view in your email
>> client. But many email clients (e.g. Thunderbird, pine, mutt, Sylpheed)
>> offer this useful feature.
>>
>> And the online "forum" style view of the NSLUG maling list at
>> http://www.nabble.com/nSLUG-f21235.html
>> http://www.nabble.com/nSLUG-f21235.html  uses a threaded view, too.
>>
>> Please compose a new email to "nslug@..." when you start a new topic
>> / thread and use reply only to actually reply to an existing discussion.
> _______________________________________________
> nSLUG mailing list
> nSLUG@...
> http://nslug.ns.ca/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nslug
>

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[Stephen Gregory-2]

On Fri, Oct 09, 2009 at 11:56:38AM -0300, Daniel Morrison wrote:
>
> Is there a message ID that is preserved by all mail clients when
> replying to a message, and which other mail clients/the archiving
> software uses to thread, in preference to the subject?

Yes. There are two headers (possibly more) used to manage threading:
In-Reply-To, and References. A good example of these headers are in the
recent post with the subject:

 Re: [nSLUG] Free: S1836 board and two 600 MHz processors (SCSI not
working?)

That post has the following headers:

In-Reply-To: <4ACE18F4.5020409@...>
References: <2238dbfb0909151921i4a27c156oebcd531176edd730@...>
        <76a19f960909152022t2204c907if48dc51208820d38@...>
        <2238dbfb0909160516v5f0fd10dxb9c5769d9f60f815@...>
        <76a19f960909160554t780bcdeaw1809b62d9e2589ef@...>
        <2238dbfb0909160602k523758c3qab23c39893b98635@...>
        <76a19f960909160616i30beb822g494d8865c65dc8a3@...>
        <4389e6d40909160858v1d4a0770pf13b64f9b3695e6@...>
        <4AB10E96.4020503@...>
        <20090916205104.GQ28113@...>
        <4ACE18F4.5020409@...>

I suspect this is one of the emails that prompted Oliver's email. The
Free S1836 board has nothing to do with the original thread.


> Some invention
> that was intended to "make life easier" by allowing threads to
> continue over subject changes, but which is instead now imposing more
> rules on members?

Watch it there young whipper-snapper. :-)
This style of threading has been a standard (of sorts) since
RFC822. It was written in 1982.

--
sg
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[Ben Armstrong]

On Fri, 9 Oct 2009 11:56:38 -0300
Daniel Morrison <draker@...> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Can you explain why this happens? I mean, it sounds like a bug. Gmail
> certainly doesn't have trouble threading messges properly.

Gmail doesn't thread.  It apparently sorts by subject (with some
fuzziness allowed) and subsorts by date.  Proper threading is
linked by references in the headers and is immune to subject changes.
I consider it to be useful to know when an original thread has
branched into a sub-discussion, so I prefer proper threading.

Another notable mail client that does such "pseudo" threading is Pine
(or at least did the last time I was a user, many moons ago).

Ben
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[Daniel Morrison-2]

Thanks for both your answers. It's funny, I didn't really think about
these for email, only for usenet.

2009/10/9 Stephen Gregory <nslug@...>:
> On Fri, Oct 09, 2009 at 11:56:38AM -0300, Daniel Morrison wrote:

>> Some invention
>> that was intended to "make life easier" by allowing threads to
>> continue over subject changes, but which is instead now imposing more
>> rules on members?
>
> Watch it there young whipper-snapper. :-)
> This style of threading has been a standard (of sorts) since
> RFC822. It was written in 1982.

I suppose the situation must have improved since this was written, in 1999:

http://www.hypernews.org/HyperNews/get/hypernews/email/101.html
"most email programs do not support In-Reply-To headers"

But it still leaves me wonder why the threading software has made the
decision that these headers are more important than the subject. Is it
really more common for a conversation to change subject than for the
subject change to mark the start of a (completely unrelated) subject?
Or maybe a better question would be: shouldn't new subjects signal the
start of a new "subject thread" anyway?

I am drifting into virtual territory, which does not change the
reality of our list, so I guess at this time it is important to *not*
reply to unrelated messages.

Still, while I'm dreaming away... it would be nice for email clients
to have a 'reset/purge references' button, to allow control of this
feature. I really think the computers should mold themselves to human
behaviour as much as possible, rather than the other way around. Try
telling my parent's generation that "you're doing it wrong" when as
far as they know it's been working just fine all this time...

I know, mail clients could wait until the subject line is changed,
then pop-up a message:
"You're changing the subject. Is this the start of a new, unrelated
topic? [Yes/purge threads] [No/keep threads]"

BTW I found a good summary here: http://cr.yp.to/immhf/thread.html

Thanks,

-D.
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[Daniel Morrison-2]

2009/10/9 Ben Armstrong <synrg@...>:
> Gmail doesn't thread.  It apparently sorts by subject (with some
> fuzziness allowed) and subsorts by date.  Proper threading is
> linked by references in the headers and is immune to subject changes.
> I consider it to be useful to know when an original thread has
> branched into a sub-discussion, so I prefer proper threading.

Some pretty strong language about what is "proper" threading and what
isn't, Ben! :)

Obviously someone simply replying and changing the subject for an
unrelated message is not "branching into a sub-discussion". In the
good old days we used "Subject: New subject (WAS: old subject)" in
order to make the distinction clear.

Seems to me that Gmail works better with real-life human behaviour,
and nabble doesn't, so how does that make it "proper threading"? Ivory
towers...

Here's a joke:

One day this guy is finally fed up with his middle-class existence and
decides to do something about it.  He calls up his best friend, who is a
mathematical genius.  "Look," he says, "do you suppose you could find some
way mathematically of guaranteeing winning at the race track?  We could
make a lot of money and retire and enjoy life."  The mathematician thinks
this over a bit and walks away mumbling to himself.
        A week later his friend drops by to ask the genius if he's had any
success.  The genius, looking a little bleary-eyed, replies, "Well, yes,
actually I do have an idea, and I'm reasonably sure that it will work, but
there a number of details to be figured out.
        After the second week the mathematician appears at his friend's house,
looking quite a bit rumpled, and announces, "I think I've got it! I still have
some of the theory to work out, but now I'm certain that I'm on the right
track."
        At the end of the third week the mathematician wakes his friend by
pounding on his door at three in the morning.  He has dark circles under his
eyes.  His hair hasn't been combed for many days.  He appears to be wearing
the same clothes as the last time.  He has several pencils sticking out from
behind his ears and an almost maniacal expression on his face.  "WE CAN DO
IT!  WE CAN DO IT!!" he shrieks. "I have discovered the perfect solution!!
And it's so EASY!  First, we assume that horses are perfect spheres in simple
harmonic motion..."

- FORTUNE(6)
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[odoepner]

Hi Daniel,

This is the reference information: Internet Engineering Task Force, RFC 2822 ("Internet Message Format"), section 3.6.4

The standard basically says that Message IDs are used to express the "parent-child" relationship between emails that constitute the tree structure that is commonly called "threads".

The text of the subject line(s) is a less reliable way of "guessing" that emails belong to the same "conversation". Gmail seems to use a kind of "smart guessing" in addition to the Message IDs.

cheers
Oliver

Daniel Morrison-2 wrote:

Hello,

Can you explain why this happens? I mean, it sounds like a bug. Gmail
certainly doesn't have trouble threading messges properly.

Is there a message ID that is preserved by all mail clients when
replying to a message, and which other mail clients/the archiving
software uses to thread, in preference to the subject? Some invention
that was intended to "make life easier" by allowing threads to
continue over subject changes, but which is instead now imposing more
rules on members?

Sorry if I'm coming across a bit blunt -- I really want to learn how
this works. I noticed in a mailman list archive that I maintain that
some messages seemed to be children of unrelated "parent" messages,
and would like to learn why this happens. Also, because I quite
regularly just reply to a message and change the subject (not so much
for NSLUG, but in my everyday email), as I was under the impression
that it was equivalent to starting an entirely new message, but
without needing to type in the To: addresses once again.

If there's some specific documentation on this, feel free to just
point me to it.

Thanks,

-D.

2009/10/9 odoepner <[e-mail]>:
>
> Hello,
>
> I noticed that people often start new topics by "replying" to an unrelated
> email from NSLUG and editing the subject line. This messes up threads. The
> emails regarding the new topic will show up within the (unrelated) thread of
> the email that the poster used to "conveniently" replied to.
>
> You may not notice this if you don't use a threaded view in your email
> client. But many email clients (e.g. Thunderbird, pine, mutt, Sylpheed)
> offer this useful feature.
>
> And the online "forum" style view of the NSLUG maling list at
> http://www.nabble.com/nSLUG-f21235.html
> http://www.nabble.com/nSLUG-f21235.html  uses a threaded view, too.
>
> Please compose a new email to "[e-mail]" when you start a new topic
> / thread and use reply only to actually reply to an existing discussion.
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[odoepner]

Pine is now ALpine ("Apache License" Pine):
http://www.washington.edu/alpine/

Not sure how it determines email threads, though.

Ben Armstrong wrote:

Another notable mail client that does such "pseudo" threading is Pine
(or at least did the last time I was a user, many moons ago).

[odoepner]

Daniel,

Nabble follows RFC 2822. Many email clients do that, too.

If you rely primarily on the subject line, you get all kinds of side-effects:

- The software has to parse out things like "Re:", "Fw:", "AW:" (German Outlook speak for "Re:"), etc.
- Emails with boiler plate subject lines like "Re: your message" will all be in one (huge?) thread
- Using the subject line to summarize your individual reply email becomes impossible
- Correcting the subject line during a thread becomes impossible
- The standard reference headers (according to RFC 2822) have to be ignored
- Error messages with standard subject lines like "Delivery Status Notification" will form a thread

All that just because some people use "Reply to" in a sloppy way.

Gmail seems to do a little more (or less) than just look at subject lines to detect "conversations" (a Gmail concept). It does not seem to follow RFC 2822:

- I just sent two emails with identical subject to myself (using Gmail) and they showed up a separate conversations.
- Then I replied to one of the emails and changed the subject line. That showed up as a third separate conversation.

cheers
Oliver

Daniel Morrison-2 wrote:

Obviously someone simply replying and changing the subject for an
unrelated message is not "branching into a sub-discussion". In the
good old days we used "Subject: New subject (WAS: old subject)" in
order to make the distinction clear.

[odoepner]

Another thing I forgot:

RFC 2822 allows actual tree structures because each email has a header that identifies its unique "parent" message. This puts the message into its proper place in the thread tree (even when people have their clock mis-configured).

Using subject line magic you can only lump a whole bunch of emails into a "subject" bucket (and then maybe sort chronologically, hoping that all clocks involved were ok). You don't know which specific message another message replied to.

[Ben Armstrong]

On Fri, 9 Oct 2009 08:51:37 -0700 (PDT)
odoepner <odoepner@...> wrote:
> The text of the subject line(s) is a less reliable way of "guessing" that
> emails belong to the same "conversation". Gmail seems to use a kind of
> "smart guessing" in addition to the Message IDs.

In addition to?  A simple test says not: send yourself a message "test
one" and reply to it, changing the subject to "test two".  You will get
two "threads".

Ben
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[odoepner]

This thread "Re: In-Reply-To header for conversations?" on the gmail-help-settings-en mailing list summarizes quite nicely the Gmail vs RFC 2822 debate: http://markmail.org/message/a4szucli6c66vvf6

Daniel Morrison-2 wrote:

Seems to me that Gmail works better with real-life human behaviour [..]

[Ben Armstrong]

On Fri, 9 Oct 2009 12:36:52 -0300
Daniel Morrison <draker@...> wrote:
> Seems to me that Gmail works better with real-life human behaviour,
> and nabble doesn't, so how does that make it "proper threading"? Ivory
> towers...

I, for one, welcome our new overlords.  After all, Google invented the
Internet ... Shades of AOL ...

Ben
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[odoepner]

You are right, Ben. I gave Gmail too much credit. I just ran the same test and got the same results as you. This sucks.

Ben Armstrong wrote:

[..] Send yourself a message "test one" and reply to it, changing the subject to "test two".  You will get two "threads".

[Ben Armstrong]

On Fri, 9 Oct 2009 09:51:28 -0700 (PDT)
odoepner <odoepner@...> wrote:
> This thread "Re: In-Reply-To header for conversations?" on the
> gmail-help-settings-en mailing list summarizes quite nicely the Gmail vs RFC
> 2822 debate:  http://markmail.org/message/a4szucli6c66vvf6
> http://markmail.org/message/a4szucli6c66vvf6 

Plausible conjecture.  But just because the majority of people do
something wrong on the Internet doesn't mean I have to like it. :P

Ben
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[Ben Armstrong]

On Fri, 9 Oct 2009 09:21:36 -0700 (PDT)
odoepner <odoepner@...> wrote:
> If you rely primarily on the subject line, you get all kinds of
> side-effects:

By the way, *thank you* for enumerating the reasons pseudo-threading
sucks.  I wholly agree.

Ben
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[odoepner]

I agree. I would much rather prefer that - at least on the NSLUG mailing list - people use "Reply to" properly.

I do not read NSLUG messages on my Gmail account. I read (and reply) only via nabble.com. My Gmail account is set up to delete all NSLUG emails immediately ... :^)

cheers
Oliver

Ben Armstrong wrote:

Plausible conjecture.  But just because the majority of people do
something wrong on the Internet doesn't mean I have to like it. :P

[Ben Armstrong]

On Fri, 9 Oct 2009 09:59:27 -0700 (PDT)
odoepner <odoepner@...> wrote:
> I agree. I would much rather prefer that - at least on the NSLUG mailing list
> - people use "Reply to" properly.
>
> I do not read NSLUG messages on my Gmail account. I read (and reply) only
> via nabble.com. My Gmail account is set up to delete all NSLUG emails
> immediately ... :^)

You can modify your subscription settings using your mailing list
password to disable email delivery, by the way.  Think of all of the
electrons you will save!

Ben
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[Hatem Nassrat]

On Fri, Oct 09, 2009 at 12:36:52PM -0300, Daniel Morrison wrote:
> 2009/10/9 Ben Armstrong <synrg@...>:
> > Gmail doesn't thread.  It apparently sorts by subject (with some
> > fuzziness allowed) and subsorts by date.  Proper threading is
> > linked by references in the headers and is immune to subject changes.
> > I consider it to be useful to know when an original thread has
> > branched into a sub-discussion, so I prefer proper threading.
>
> Some pretty strong language about what is "proper" threading and what
> isn't, Ben! :)

There was no strong language there. I arrived alte to this conversation
but I guess this confusion was cleared up and you figured out why all
mail clients put Message-Id and In-Reply-To, and if you use a nice mail
client like mutt you would be able to see them and edit them if you
want. The purpose of these headers to be able to track which email you
are replying to (quite apparent from the name of the header, eh). This
is the way the RFC designed how mail should be linked (as a tree or
graph representation).

To clarify even more, here is a snapshot of how my mail client shows off
how the conversation progressed, and the different 'threads' and
'sub-threads' of conversation.

    http://twitpic.com/kus2x

--
Hatem Nassrat
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