On Mon, 21 Nov 2005, Doug Ferrell wrote:

OH MY GOD!

No Pine installed by default! I'm definitely going to have to do the "below" since that is my MAIN MAN! I had heard there were some problems with the distros and pine but I'm running old stuff before 4.x

The UW license prohibits the distribution of binaries built from patched source code, which poses a problem for binary distributions.

On 11/22/05, Bryan J. Smith thebs413@earthlink.net wrote:

Doug Ferrell aprstlh@earthlink.net wrote:

...

OH MY GOD! No Pine installed by default! I'm definitely going to have

[OT from thread] Bryan, What mail client you are using? Everytime you reply to a query instead of coming under the same thred a new thread is started. Makes it difficult to read a thread.

-- Sudev Barar Learning Linux

On Mon, 2005-11-21 at 20:07 -0700, Craig White wrote:

probably a webmail client - I have deleted his emails so I can't look at the headers but I think Karanbir killed off some of his email addresses which limits which clients he uses.

It's because I append the subject. If I don't, GMail _may_ thread on subject correctly. It's still imperfect.

Threading on Message-ID has worked for 30+ years -- even before SMTP and NNTP were commonplace.

Perhaps Karanbir would want to declare amnesty for the 2 he banished to the pointless forest...

Not part of the issue at all.

On Mon, 2005-11-21 at 23:01 -0500, Bryan J. Smith wrote:

It works brilliantly when your mail (SMTP) or news (NNTP) reader tracks via 30+ year old Message-ID. That way you can thread dozens or even hundreds of follow-ups, even if the topic changes, while still allowing others to not have to read through dozens before getting to it.

Take the "Putting nat routing into place permanently thread" for example (just a few posts in): http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/2005-November/thread.html

Look at all the changes in the discussion. By threading by Message-ID, the subject can be appended (or even pre-pended with the RE/WAS combo) and let browsers find the relevant section rather quickly.

And this was a _short_ thread. Imagine a much longer one! ;->

I receive more thanks from people who find my stuff buried in Google searches than I receive complaints from GMail users, so I continue to use the O'Reilly Guidelines.

BTW, I don't say that because of my ego or some @$$-covering move. Remember, it's much easier for me just to hit "reply" and not care. I literally get thanx for giving hints in a threaded archive for saving people a lot of time when they find discussions with me in a Google search.

Aleksandar Milivojevic alex@milivojevic.org wrote:

There's couple of problems here: Not all mail/news readers track exclusevly via Message-ID, References and In-Reply-To headers.

So in other words, they decide to snub decades of Internet standards.

I use Yahoo Mail for a reason. PC Mag gave it Editor's Choice for a reason. It honors and uses Internet standards better than the overwhelming majority of others.

Message-ID tracking has been, and _always_ will be, absolute. Subject tracking is arbitrary and GMail will "never get it right" no matter how hard they try.

Some don't even generate/update optional References and In-Reply-To.

Yes, I know. GMail is pretty poor in this regard beyond 1-2 follow-ups, although it seems to have gotten better in the last few months. I think they are slowly, but surely, coming to the realization that not building a system that fully tracks Message-ID is presenting all sorts of issues for their users.

I see broken threads in archives from GMail users regularly -- although not nearly as bad as other web readers.

Some will start brand new thread each time

GMail hasn't done that for a long time. As long as you respond to someone in a thread, it typically keeps the Message-ID. So GMail does do the "minimum required" for proper threading in most cases.

Subject changes, even if they otherwise follow References

and

In-Reply-To.

Subject changes are considered "good practice" in the decades of SMTP and NNTP collaboration. The only reason they have become an "issue" in recent years is because of the number of broken mail readers that disregard Message-ID headers.

As I said, if you look at _any_ mail archive, subject appending does _wonders_ for searches, thread indexes, etc... That's why it was _highly_ recommended in the early days of UseNet, and is _still_ highly recommended in the modern days of web-based mailing list archives.

Whenever you changed subject line, you went totally off-topic (meaning, you should have not posted to the list at all).

Huh? I _append_ the subject when a major point changes the discussion. Again, I get countless thanks from people almost daily who find my stuff in a 25+ post mailing list archive because they found the relevant answer much faster than having to go through it one-by-one.

Furthermore, even Google itself indexes things with a heavy focus on subject. Which is why the more relevant you can update the subject, the better it is for people trying to find the info in a Google search.

I also change the subject radically with the "good practice" of RE/WAS.

Please, don't generate chaos.

I don't generate chaos. People using _broken_ mail readers are generating the chaos with mis-threaded archives. That's the problem, not I.

While chaos might be natural state of universe, it

shouldn't be

the natural state of this particular mailing list.

No offense, but I tire of being the victim of a world that uses _broken_ mail readers. I contribute to the proper threading and readability of mailing list archivers by taking the time to append the subject, or change it when something changes topic significantly.

\begin{sotto voce} I can't believe I'm jumping into a thread like this. \end{sotto voce}

On Tue, 22 Nov 2005 at 10:23am, Les Mikesell wrote

On Tue, 2005-11-22 at 09:52, Bryan J. Smith wrote:

...

...

Not all mail/news readers track exclusevly via Message-ID, References and In-Reply-To headers.

So in other words, they decide to snub decades of Internet standards.

They are realistic about people's use of email. They hit reply/reply-all to reply to the sender/group, not necessarily to the content of the previous message, and they change the subject line when it isn't relevant and they are changing

Ah, so we ignore established standards based on users' stupidity. Good idea.

the topic. Please resume this argument when you have taught the rest of the world the value of the headers they can't

Threading that *works* is the value that users would notice.

see and some way to get the address list from a message without making an irrelevant In-Repy-To:.

Yeah, because address books are *so* hard to use.

I'm sorry, but making decisions based on Stupid User Tricks is about the worst policy I can imagine. That way lies madness.

Les Mikesell lesmikesell@gmail.com wrote:

They are realistic about people's use of email.

Or there acceptance of broken software/sites.

I don't complain about the ettique of others. I don't mind that they break topics, use poor readers, etc... I deal with it. It's not worth bothering a list about.

In fact, on some lists, I'm even chastized for bottom posting! And only a minority of people know that bottom posting _is_ "good practice" in the history of Internet mail. So at what point does "majority ignorance" become "majority rule"?

Please tell me that -- because there are so many _conflicting_ "good practices" out there that I can only rely on what I have known after 16 years on the Internet.

Here's the deal ... it's much easier for me to just do what they do -- respond and not care about subject, recipients, editing out/cutting content, use Message-ID honoring mail readers (Yahoo Mail and Evolution), etc...

But I take the time to do that, for the _benefit_ of SMTP archives. It is the same in the case of NNTP readers as well. That is the Internet I was taught back in 1989 on-ward, and is not defined by mail readers that top post, ignore Message-ID, cultivate bad response habits, don't let you easily cut out quotes, etc...

Of all the things I do that people appreciate -- bottom posting (which seems to be giving way to more and more top posting), cutting out excess quotes (even if I replace it with my own verbage), etc..., understand I at least take the _time_ to try to apply "good practices."

So I find it pathetic when people want to nitpick on things I do that are _only_ an issue with _poor_ mail readers. Or they want to complain about verbage that someone _else_ might actually appreciate. Because in the end, I'm putting forth the effort to "balance" the "best practices" I know of as a whole among people who _conflict_ in what they think is right/wrong.

Which is something I _never_ go out of my way to complain about with regard to others. I am not so insensitive that I feel erked by little practices. I'd rather focus on the discussions and questions and help, instead of stopping to use so-called ettique as a method of just complaining about someone.

This will be my last post on the matter.

On Tue, 2005-11-22 at 08:22 -0600, Aleksandar Milivojevic wrote:

Quoting "Bryan J. Smith" thebs413@earthlink.net:

...

Look at all the changes in the discussion. By threading by Message-ID, the subject can be appended (or even pre-pended with the RE/WAS combo) and let browsers find the relevant section rather quickly.

There's couple of problems here:

Not all mail/news readers track exclusevly via Message-ID, References and In-Reply-To headers. Some don't even generate/update optional References and In-Reply-To. Some will start brand new thread each time Subject changes, even if they otherwise follow References and In-Reply-To.

Whenever you changed subject line, you went totally off-topic (meaning, you should have not posted to the list at all). Please, don't generate chaos. While chaos might be natural state of universe, it shouldn't be the natural state of this particular mailing list.

---- sounds like a Bill Maher new rule.

;-)

Craig