[Coco] Message Threading

[John W. Linville]

On Wed, Aug 09, 2017 at 02:34:24PM -0400, Barry Nelson wrote:
> >        John W. Linville linville at tuxdriver.com
> <mailto:coco%40maltedmedia.com?Subject=Re%3A%20%5BCoco%5D%20Message%20Thread
> ing&In-Reply-To=%3C20170809142952.GA24271%40tuxdriver.com%3E> 
> Wed Aug 9 10:29:52 EDT 2017
> 
>  
> 
> >         Amen to that. Some people seem to believe that message threading
> is
> >         done by matching subjects (and therefore that changing subjects
> makes
> >         for a new thread). This is, of course, generally
> incorrect...except
> >         that some email clients (i.e. MUAs) are broken in just this
> >         way...*sigh*...
>  
> >         So, to everyone else..._PLEASE_ only reply to a message on the
> list
> >         if you are actually replying to the subject of that message. If
> you
> >         are actually starting a new subject (i.e. a new thread), then send
> >         a new message to coco at maltedmedia.com
> <https://pairlist5.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/coco>  -- yes, you have to
> endure
> >         entering the actual To: address. :-)
>  
> 
> >        ~~~
> 
>  
> 
> I am glad that some of you have the time to receive and soft through
> individual message from this list, however some of us like to receive the
> list as a periodic digest of messages and so never receive any message in
> our mail client except one with a subject like "Coco Digest, Vol 179, Issue
> 22". I also see that some people (not necessarily the poster of this
> message) also have nothing better to do than to make a stick about how other
> people reply to messages. Perhaps it would be better if I stopped posting
> messages to the list altogether? Or maybe we should all go back to actually
> discussing the topic the list is dedicated to, Color Computers, and stop
> complaining about minor technical inconveniences? If there is a better way
> to handle digest messages and reply, however, do contact me off list, but I
> intend to continue receiving the list in digest form as long as that is
> allowed.

1st response: decaf :-)

So to start, replying to a digest isn't really the problem being
discussed. I don't see anyway for a reply to a digest to hijack a
thread, since the digest isn't part of the thread anyway.

With that said, how to reply to a digest is an interesting issue. My
advice would be to _never_ Reply to the digest message itself. Instead,
send a new message to coco at maltedmedia.com (either completely new or
start by Forwarding the digest so that the text is inline) and adjust
the Subject to match the old thread to which you are replying. The
message will still break out to a new thread, but some MUAs actually
will combine alike Subjects, apparently when one of them is a fresh
thread. Anyway...breaking a thread is less problematic than hijacking
one, and the only other option is some serious email header hacking...

Communication is a two-way process. There are ways to send messages
that make them easier to process at the receiving end, making them
more likely to be read and less trouble for people to respond. If you
don't want your messages read by as large an audience as possible,
then do whatever you like. Really, I'm just offering advice to make
your message flow more smoothly to everyone's Inbox.

John
-- 
John W. Linville		Someday the world will need a hero, and you
linville at tuxdriver.com			might be all we have.  Be ready.