From: John Stanley (stanley@peak.org)
Date: Tue May 06 2003 - 13:46:10 CDT
Claus Färber (list-ietf-wg-apps-usefor@faerber.muc.de):
>The idea is to split threads (defined by References) at subject changes,
>so that you have a new thread whenever the topic of the thread changes.
Except, by definition, the thread is not dependent upon the Subject
header, it is defined by the References header. It is incumbent upon the
poster to correctly indicate a new thread, if that is what they truly want
to start. They do that not just by changing the subject, but by telling
their agent that this is a new thread and not a followup -- or by removing
the References by hand. If they lie to the agent, well, I see no purpose
in second guessing them.
In addition, just changing the subject header does not imply that the
topic has changed. People change subjects without changing topics,
sometimes just to fix spelling errors, or to negate an opinion stated in
that subject. E.g., "Re: necessary for good health" may be changed to "Re:
unnecessary for good health". Is that really a different topic? I don't
think so, nor does the References header.
>On the other hand, in email discussions the subject is often all you
>have.
This is not a discussion about a mail standard. We have, in all correctly
functioning news agents, the References header, which defines threading.