OT: How to reply to a thread, and why it's important

[zeke7237]

Sorry for the spam, but I quit smoking tobacco last week and I'm in a
foul mood, and this is one of my pet peeves (along with HTML mail) ..

<minor rant>
Those who use a threading mail program (Gmail is a great example) see
a thread as a group of messages all clumped together to make it easy
to read in context. You've probably noticed that often times a reply
to a thread will show up at the top level rather than in it's
sequential place in the thread .. creating a new, different thread
than the original. Then some people might reply to the "new" thread
while others reply to the original thread .. maybe yet another "new"
thread gets created. Ever wonder why?

Well, it's because some people do not use the "Reply" button, but
rather copy/past a subject line into a new email and post that. Seems
sensible at first blush, but doing so breaks threads .. bad netiquette
and unnecessary to boot. The key is in the (generally invisible) mail
headers. Every email has 'em, and you can make them visible in all
email clients one way or another (in gmail click on the little
dropdown box at the top left of any message and "View Original"). The
headers of interest for this topic are the Message-ID, In-Reply-To and
References headers.

Here's some of the headers from a recent top thread message on the
Elecraft list:

Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 18:08:28 -0800 (PST)
To: Elecraft Reflector <[hidden email]>
From: Lee Buller <[hidden email]>
Subject: [Elecraft] K3:  Stereo Speakers - What are you using?

And here's the relevant headers from it's first reply:

Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
Date: Wed, 05 Mar 2008 20:38:21 -0600
To: Lee Buller <[hidden email]>, [hidden email]
From: Tom Hammond <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] K3:  Stereo Speakers - What are you using?
In-Reply-To: <[hidden email]>
References: <[hidden email]>

Notice how the In-Reply-To header from Tom's reply has the Message-ID
from Lee's original message? That, dear friends, is the key to
threading .. and those headers are only generated when you hit the
"Reply" button! When a user tries to get around the Reply button for
whatever reason, those headers are not generated and the thread is
broken..

So .. please use Reply often and responsibly, and help clean up all
the broken threads. It's true that reckless use of Reply (and Reply
All) can result in embarrasing situation when mail which is intended
to be private ends up on a list, but you should always examine the
generated reply before hitting Send anyway :)
</minor rant>

Have a great day, everyone!
de w1rt/john
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[Darwin, Keith]

Well, I never new that.  Thanks for the mini-rant.  I've always clicked
Reply but now I have a better understanding of how it works.

So if I click "reply" and then edit the title of the reply, does that
also break the thread?

And, yes, I was tempted, just for fun, to create a new message and copy
& paste the title to break the tread, but decided to.

- Keith N1AS -
- K2 5411.ssb.100 -
- K3 Wave 3 (soon) -

-----Original Message-----
From: John D'Ausilio

So .. please use Reply often and responsibly, and help clean up all the
broken threads.
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[Julian, G4ILO]

John D'Ausilio wrote

Sorry for the spam, but I quit smoking tobacco last week and I'm in a
foul mood, and this is one of my pet peeves (along with HTML mail) ..

[snip]

Except that some people receive digests, and others don't want this stuff cluttering up their mailbox at all and read the online archives. The only way these folks can reply is by copying and pasting into a new message.

[Barry N1EU]

This is a reply using the archive at http://www.nabble.com/Elecraft-f28632.html which has direct reply capability - no copy/paste needed.  I use this method almost exclusively.

73,
Barry N1EU

G4ILO wrote

. . . others don't want this stuff cluttering up their mailbox at all and read the online archives. The only way these folks can reply is by copying and pasting into a new message.

[Rick Kunath]

G4ILO wrote:

>
> John D'Ausilio wrote:
>> Sorry for the spam, but I quit smoking tobacco last week and I'm in a
>> foul mood, and this is one of my pet peeves (along with HTML mail) ..
>>
>> [snip]
>>
> Except that some people receive digests, and others don't want this stuff
> cluttering up their mailbox at all and read the online archives. The only
> way these folks can reply is by copying and pasting into a new message.

Exactly right. (Except you can reply using an online archive without
breaking the thread.)

This is why getting the email in digest form if you are ever wanting to
reply to a threaded message is a bad idea. *All* digest replies break
message threading, and are really frowned on on some email lists. The
digest is it's own thread, and any copied and pasted new message also
becomes it's own thread.

Short answer, if you are wanting to ever reply to a message, don't get
the digest, because it breaks threading. If you must get the digest,
create a Nabble account and post there, thereby not breaking the
existing message threading.

Digests were never designed for people receiving them to take an active
part in email list threads, because they break the threading and
fragment message reply continuity.

Nabble allows you to reply to a message, just as you would with your
email client (in non-digest mode) and won't break the thread.

There really isn't any excuse for breaking a thread.

Folks may not realize the down side to using the digest mode.

Rick Kunath, k9ao
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[Rick Kunath]

Darwin, Keith wrote:
> Well, I never new that.  Thanks for the mini-rant.  I've always clicked
> Reply but now I have a better understanding of how it works.
>
> So if I click "reply" and then edit the title of the reply, does that
> also break the thread?

No, the threading stays intact. The subject does not matter.

Which brings up another subject...

If the thread has morphed onto another subject, changing or altering the
subject is a good idea in some cases. The original threading is still
linked to the original thread in this case. It may be better to just
start a new thread sometimes, but that's a hard call to make.

Changing the subject to something entirely different and replying is
called thread hijacking. This is frowned upon in general.

I.e. the thread is on CW paddles, someone has a question and changes the
subject to power supplies. They just hijacked the thread with a new
subject because they replied rather than starting a new message from
scratch. This should be avoided.

If the subject is CW paddles and morphs on to CW memory keyers as the
discussion rolls along, it may be appropriate to reflect this with a
subject edit to reflect the new content at some point. Of course, a new
thread on the new topic could also be started. This is the better choice
if it won't disrupt the discussion flow.

Rick Kunath, k9ao
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[Jerry Keller (K3BZ)]

What about Outlook Express, which has a choice of "Reply" or "Reply All".
What these do depends on how the reflector is set up my the owner. Sometimes
"Reply" goes just to the individual whose post is being answered and NOT to
all reflecvtor members..... with "Reply All" going to all reflector members.
That seems best to me, because the meanings are obvious.  However, some
reflectors are set up differently, and to send only to the poster being
answwered requires cutting and pasting his address.   I think that's a pain.
It's easy to remember that "Reply" goes to ONE,  and "Reply All" goes to
ALL. (This response was sent using "Reply All")
my 2 cents....
73, Jerry K3BZ

----- Original Message -----
From: "Barry N1EU" <[hidden email]>
To: <[hidden email]>
Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2008 1:28 PM
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] OT: How to reply to a thread, and why it's important

>
> This is a reply using the archive at
> http://www.nabble.com/Elecraft-f28632.html which has direct reply
> capability
> - no copy/paste needed.  I use this method almost exclusively.
>
> 73,
> Barry N1EU
>
>
>
> G4ILO wrote:
>>
>> . . . others don't want this stuff cluttering up their mailbox at all and
>> read the online archives. The only way these folks can reply is by
>> copying
>> and pasting into a new message.
>>
>
> --
> View this message in context:
> http://www.nabble.com/OT%3A-How-to-reply-to-a-thread%2C-and-why-it%27s-important-tp15880052p15880679.html
> Sent from the Elecraft mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
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[David Woolley (E.L)]

Rick Kunath wrote:

> This is why getting the email in digest form if you are ever wanting to
> reply to a threaded message is a bad idea. *All* digest replies break
> message threading, and are really frowned on on some email lists. The

So this reply has broken threading?  It's a digest reply, but I would be
very disappointed in Thunderbird if it broke threading!

Providing you request the digest in multipart/digest format, any
competent mail program should be able to reply properly threaded to an
individual message from the digest.  If you use Outlook, you can even
drag the messages from a digest into a folder and treat them like real,
individual, messages.

Thunderbird does have some quirks in this context, like bogus HTML tags
in the reply and an extra Re:, in the subject, but, to the best of my
knowledge, it gets In-Reply-To right.  I'll check the archive, though.

--
David Woolley
"The Elecraft list is a forum for the discussion of topics related to
Elecraft products and more general topics related ham radio"
List Guidelines <http://www.elecraft.com/elecraft_list_guidelines.htm>
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