Fwd: [OS X TeX] gmane archives out of date.

[Owen Densmore]

Well, one can always learn!  And Nick, note that I too can screw up a  
mail list!

Here's the story: I joined the OS X TeX list.  My first email to them  
was simply that their gmane archive was broken.  But the way I did  
this was to view the first email I received on the list (on an  
entirely different topic), hit Reply, deleted the body of the email  
and changed to a new Subject.  Basically a way to get a fresh email  
with the correct To: address.

In other words, I used an existing email for a template for a new  
email to the list.

Turns out this is a no-no.  It confuses modern email clients into  
thinking this is the same thread even though the subject has changed.  
It certainly occurs all the time in my client (Mail.app), but I just  
presumed Mail.app was struggling to identify "same thread-ness" via  
context and failing.

Nope.  The headers keep a "In-reply-to" field to help in threading.  
So when I cloned a new email, deleting all but the to: field, I  
inadvertently kept the "In-reply-to" header field, thus screwing up  
everyone's email threading.

(BTW: This never happens with Nabble and Forum software due to the  
explicit new-post/reply buttons, thus completely isolating a thread.  
There the etiquette is simply search before a new post to see if there  
is already a similar thread underway.)

Sigh!  But Nick, I now know what you mean by that "calm, stern, reply-
to-an-idiot" tone of voice.

    -- Owen

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Bruno Voisin <bvoisin at mac.com>
> Date: July 8, 2008 12:28:21 AM MDT
> To: TeX on Mac OS X Mailing List <macosx-tex at email.esm.psu.edu>
> Subject: Re: [OS X TeX] gmane archives out of date.
> Reply-To: TeX on Mac OS X Mailing List <macosx-tex at email.esm.psu.edu>
>
> Le 8 juil. 08 ? 01:49, Owen Densmore a ?crit :
>
>> On Jul 7, 2008, at 5:27 PM, Gary L. Gray wrote:
>>
>>> Please don't hijack existing threads -- see the "List Reminders  
>>> and Etiquette" link in the footer of this message.
>>
>> Yikes! Not sure how I hijacked an existing thread.  Is there a "os  
>> x tex gmane" thread?  Anyway, sorry!
>
> You hijack an existing thread by replying to a message from this  
> thread to create a new message with different subject.
>
> Symptom: in emailers which support threading (such as Apple's Mail,  
> Mozilla's Thunderbird), your new message and the various answers it  
> will get will be classified within the same thread as the original  
> message you replied to.
>
> Cause: by replying to an existing message, whatever new subject you  
> enter manually for the reply, this reply will keep in its hidden  
> headers an In-reply-to header such as (in your case)
>
> In-reply-to: <44A1AC9F-179E-4FA3-8788-D3315424734B at mac.com>
>
> Cure: always use Address Book to create a new message, or hover the  
> pointer onto the headers of an existing message and when either of  
> the From or To fields turns into a blue button click on the white  
> triangle on the right of this button and select "New message" in the  
> contextual menu that appears.
>
> See <http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/list/>.
>
> Bruno Voisin
>
>
>
>
>
> ----------- Please Consult the Following Before Posting -----------
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> List Reminders and Etiquette: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/list/
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> Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
> List Info: http://email.esm.psu.edu/mailman/listinfo/macosx-tex
>

[Marcus G. Daniels]

Well, this list swallows e-mails with sufficient frequency that when
discussions seem out of context, I just go back to the archives to see
why.   Sure enough, the answer is usually that the relevant context was
never sent, at least to me.

In this situations, when I want to reply, I just start a new thread cut
and pasting from the archive.   Sure, I could hack up the headers of the
e-mail to make the threads work, but it would be better if the delivery
just worked in the first place!

Marcus