Well, one can always learn! And Nick, note that I too can screw up a
mail list!
Here's the story: I joined the OS X TeX list. My first email to them
was simply that their gmane archive was broken. But the way I did
this was to view the first email I received on the list (on an
entirely different topic), hit Reply, deleted the body of the email
and changed to a new Subject. Basically a way to get a fresh email
with the correct To: address.
In other words, I used an existing email for a template for a new
email to the list.
Turns out this is a no-no. It confuses modern email clients into
thinking this is the same thread even though the subject has changed.
It certainly occurs all the time in my client (Mail.app), but I just
presumed Mail.app was struggling to identify "same thread-ness" via
context and failing.
Nope. The headers keep a "In-reply-to" field to help in threading.
So when I cloned a new email, deleting all but the to: field, I
inadvertently kept the "In-reply-to" header field, thus screwing up
everyone's email threading.
(BTW: This never happens with Nabble and Forum software due to the
explicit new-post/reply buttons, thus completely isolating a thread.
There the etiquette is simply search before a new post to see if there
is already a similar thread underway.)
Sigh! But Nick, I now know what you mean by that "calm, stern, reply-
to-an-idiot" tone of voice.
-- Owen
Begin forwarded message:
> From: Bruno Voisin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: July 8, 2008 12:28:21 AM MDT
> To: TeX on Mac OS X Mailing List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: [OS X TeX] gmane archives out of date.
> Reply-To: TeX on Mac OS X Mailing List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> Le 8 juil. 08 à 01:49, Owen Densmore a écrit :
>
>> On Jul 7, 2008, at 5:27 PM, Gary L. Gray wrote:
>>
>>> Please don't hijack existing threads -- see the "List Reminders
>>> and Etiquette" link in the footer of this message.
>>
>> Yikes! Not sure how I hijacked an existing thread. Is there a "os
>> x tex gmane" thread? Anyway, sorry!
>
> You hijack an existing thread by replying to a message from this
> thread to create a new message with different subject.
>
> Symptom: in emailers which support threading (such as Apple's Mail,
> Mozilla's Thunderbird), your new message and the various answers it
> will get will be classified within the same thread as the original
> message you replied to.
>
> Cause: by replying to an existing message, whatever new subject you
> enter manually for the reply, this reply will keep in its hidden
> headers an In-reply-to header such as (in your case)
>
> In-reply-to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> Cure: always use Address Book to create a new message, or hover the
> pointer onto the headers of an existing message and when either of
> the From or To fields turns into a blue button click on the white
> triangle on the right of this button and select "New message" in the
> contextual menu that appears.
>
> See <http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/list/>.
>
> Bruno Voisin
>
>
>
>
>
> ----------- Please Consult the Following Before Posting -----------
> TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
> List Reminders and Etiquette: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/list/
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>
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