David Hobby wrote: > The other is "sending a new message by replying > to an old one and changing the subject line". The > complaint there is that most email readers will show > the new message as being in the same thread as the > old message on a different subject that was replied > to. I'm probably guilty of this myself, since I > seldom use threading when reading email discussions. > (I tend to just go by the subject lines.)
This is indeed what happened with this thread... Jon hit reply to an entirely separate thread and now there's this big monster thread. Changing the subject line is good and all, but Jon's email client is attempting to be smarter than he is and telling my client which mail he replied to, which unfortunately isn't involved in any of his quoting and happens to be an innocent bystander. > Does anyone view the latter meaning of "thread > hijacking" as a problem? It's certainly an annoyance and I've known people that have had that as a major pet peeve. I've also seen it done spitefully as a way to derail threads that they disagreed with, although that sort of griefing is easier on a forum rather than by email were not everyone reads the list as a threaded conversation. But at the very least it can look rude and/or lazy. You hit reply on emails that you are in fact directly replying to. If you are starting a new thread of discussion you should grab the mailing list address from your email client rather than replying to something that you are not in fact addressing. There are easy ways to deal with that... Get a smarter client that makes it easy to start a new message to your mailing lists or get a dumber client that doesn't bother to send out "in reply to" information... -- --Max Battcher-- http://www.worldmaker.net/ Where is the Miss Manners for Netiquette? Maru _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
