Re: Mailing list etiquette: do NOT press 'reply' when starting a new thread

[Jerome Vuarand <jerome.vuarand@...>]

2009/8/11 Ico Doornekamp <lua@zevv.nl>:
> * On 2009-08-11 Patrick Donnelly <batrick@batbytes.com> wrote  :
>
>> On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 9:38 PM, Asko Kauppi<askok@dnainternet.net> wrote:
>> >
>> > Since this still happens so often, I am bothering everyone on the list.
>> >
>> > Pressing 'reply' to start a new thread is easy for the poster. You get the
>> > Lua list address (lua@bazar2.conectiva.com.br) without needing to copy/paste
>> > or type it.
>> >
>> > Unfortunately, it has the following consequences:
>> >
>> > - it completely messes up mail clients (s.a. OS X Mail) that can show
>> > discussion threads
>> >        i.e. the "LuaJIT performance" thread remained "clean" for quite a
>> > while. Now it's merged with "How to create multi-dimensional table in C"
>> > thread.
>> >
>> > - it messes up the threads also in the Lua list archive, so "next in thread"
>> > won't actually do as it says
>> >
>> > PLEASE, stop this habit, and someone please take on the habit of mentioning
>> > it to newcomers who don't know.
>> >
>> > Just press 'New message'. :)
>>
>> Pressing "Reply" works just fine in Gmail. Some e-mail providers just
>> suck I guess : /
>
> The problem is not with the e-mail providers, but with the users.
>
> Every mail has an unique ID attached to it. If one replies to a message,
> a header is included in the mail to indicate the preceeding message to
> which the mail is a reply. For example, in the headers of the mail I'm
> typing now you can see the line:
>
> In-Reply-To: <790db3550908110017l76621928s597c11f5b9c144e5@mail.gmail.com>
>
> These headers are used by mail clients to keep track of threads.
>
> So, if you'd reply to a mail, and simply change the subject, this will
> result in wrong behaviour, because the In-Reply-To header 'remembers'
> the original thread the mail belongs to.
>
> I usually post new messages to a mailing list by replying to the list,
> and then removing the In-Reply-To header before sending it off, because
> I'm too laze to look up the list address.

I was very surprised when I reached the current end of the LuaJIT
Performance thread and didn't see any posts about muti dimensional
tables. So I looked for the topic Asko mentions, and checked the
content of Michael Newberry's email. AFAICT it does not contain any
In-Reply-To header. It has a References header, which references the
topic mentionned by Asko.

I don't know what is the usage when it comes to the "References"
header, and whether it should be treated as in the same thread or not.
The point is that removing In-Reply-To headers wouldn't have been
enough to satisfy Asko (I'm personnally totally satisfied with Michael
Newberry's email client and his way to use it since my own email
client didn't consider his email as in the LuaJIT performance thread).