Jason Gurtz wrote:
> All IMHO:
> 
> Neither 1a or 1b make sense unless the original message was the one which
> led to the subject change.

Which is possible, and which is in fact what I had assumed for cases 1a
and 1b.

> Regardless if there is an "Re: ", one should not include it in the
> $oldSubject.  The Re: is not part of the subject at hand.  It is just
> there, I suppose, as a visual reminder for people that don't have a proper
> threading MUA, or have deleted the previous messages.

Yes, that sounds very reasonable, IMO.

> In addition, I would also suppose that the best behavior would be to drop
> the whole "(Was: ...)" part in any subsequent replies since the subject
> has already been changed and new replies are Re: the new subject.  If the
> subject is still close enough to the original one that both should remain
> then I would question whether the subject should really have been changed
> in the first place.

I am not sure whether to agree with the second part here.  IMO, "(was:
$oldSubject)" should be dropped in any case.  The message with the
"$newSubject (was: $oldSubject)" subject line is the "bridge" message
between old and new subject; the subject changes as intended by the
poster of the "bridge" message.

If we have a thread like
A
->B
  ->C
and the poster of message C decides that the topic has to be changed
again (or changed back for whatever reason), this would lead to the
following subjects:
A: First subject
  B: Second subject (was: First subject)
    C: Third subject (was: Second subject)
or
    C: First subject (was: Second subject)

Well, the poster would probably rather use
    C: First subject again (was: Second subject)
or something like that.


Keeping the "(was: $oldSubject)" part for all messages further down the
thread is harmful, of course, because it causes longer subject lines,
and confusion and a time overhead for the reader(s).


> Looking about at the general state of most people's netiquette around the
> net I would say tough going to get people to abide by any of these
> complexities.  I say that as I observe the various LFS lists seem to be
> much better behaved than most places of discussion.

I totally agree here.  People reading the LFS lists could never be that
productive if the lists were a mess like in many other places.
:-)

> Maybe some day they
> will teach the proper use of email in grade school and it will be better.

That somehow reminds me of an 11-year-old girl, who asked me: "Nico, how
can I send you encrypted mails?" :-) I think she'll be able to do that
soon, after I get that tutorial finished ...
-- 
Nico

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