Re: 202212160543.AYC Re: eMail Conventions

[Brie]

On 12/16/22 10:04 AM, ic wrote:
In my experience, threading is done by clients looking for the 
In-Reply-To: header, not subject. Subject is a heuristic fallback, in 
case In-Reply-To is absent.


I believe the References: header is what most clients use as well?

--
Brielle Bruns
The Summit Open Source Development Group
http://www.sosdg.org/ http://www.ahbl.org

Re: 202212160543.AYC Re: eMail Conventions

[Joel Esler via NANOG]

> On Dec 16, 2022, at 12:04 PM, ic  wrote:
> 
> Hi there,
> 
>> On 16 Dec 2022, at 17:13, William Herrin > > wrote:
>> 
>> Most email clients assume that a change to the subject line (other
>> than adding "Re:" to the front) indicates that the sender wants to
>> discuss a new topic related to but meaningly different from the last.
> 
> Although I generally agree that changing the Subject line without reason is 
> an annoyance, I didn’t notice any issue with it until I came across this 
> thread, which wasn’t broken in my mail client (Apple’s Mail.app).

As a user of Mail.app as well, it is not broken for me either.  However, reason 
being — Mail does not use just the subject to thread.  I used to nerd out about 
email (top + bottom posting, etc) so the details of how Apple Mail threads have 
been lost in my ADHD riddled brain, but — that’s why.

> 
> This led me to a few tests, and FWIW even Mutt seems happy with the Subject 
> changing and still threads the emails appropriately.
> 
> In my experience, threading is done by clients looking for the In-Reply-To: 
> header, not subject. Subject is a heuristic fallback, in case In-Reply-To is 
> absent.
> 
> Some email clients (although I don’t remember which ones) remove In-Reply-To: 
> when the Subject: is changed (that might go as far back as my Gnus Oort days).
> 

…. and now that I wrote the above email response, I think you’re right.  
In-Reply-To:  I believe, is how Mail.app does it. (And several others)

Re: 202212160543.AYC Re: eMail Conventions

[William Herrin]

On Fri, Dec 16, 2022 at 9:05 AM ic  wrote:
> In my experience, threading is done by clients looking for the In-Reply-To: 
> header, not subject. Subject is a heuristic fallback, in case In-Reply-To is 
> absent.

Correct, they use the In-Reply-To and References headers to thread the
emails. Subject line change is a heuristic, not for threading the
emails but for -breaking- the thread. It's a good heuristic. Unless
the sender is doing something asinine, changing the subject line
signals their intent to start a new conversation.

Regards,
Bill Herrin


-- 
For hire. https://bill.herrin.us/resume/

Re: 202212160543.AYC Re: eMail Conventions

[ic]

Hi there,

> On 16 Dec 2022, at 17:13, William Herrin  wrote:
> 
> Most email clients assume that a change to the subject line (other
> than adding "Re:" to the front) indicates that the sender wants to
> discuss a new topic related to but meaningly different from the last.

Although I generally agree that changing the Subject line without reason is an 
annoyance, I didn’t notice any issue with it until I came across this thread, 
which wasn’t broken in my mail client (Apple’s Mail.app).

This led me to a few tests, and FWIW even Mutt seems happy with the Subject 
changing and still threads the emails appropriately.

In my experience, threading is done by clients looking for the In-Reply-To: 
header, not subject. Subject is a heuristic fallback, in case In-Reply-To is 
absent.

Some email clients (although I don’t remember which ones) remove In-Reply-To: 
when the Subject: is changed (that might go as far back as my Gnus Oort days).

BR, ic.

Re: 202212160543.AYC Re: eMail Conventions

[Tom Beecher]

>
>  Now, I would appreciate very much to see an example of how
> your eMail system handles the message threads. So that we can compare
> notes. Thanks,
>

Email *systems* don't do anything with threads. It's a construct of mail
clients. Even different mail clients do things differently, so as a rule,
it's generally best to not muck with the actual message itself that much.
Use your mail client's organizational tools as much as possible.



On Fri, Dec 16, 2022 at 10:06 AM Abraham Y. Chen  wrote:

> Dear Bill, Et al.:
>
> 0)  Ever since I signed up to the NANOG List, I have been getting
> complaints about my eMail style, format, etc. Since I could not find any
> document that clearly stated the guidelines and no one cared about
> providing an explicit lead, it has been a very frustrating experience.
> As I explained previously, my best understanding of an eMail is that it
> is an electronic equivalent of the traditional postal letter. We should
> start from following the old business correspondence protocol and then
> enhance it by taking advantage of the available electronic facility.
> Beyond that, an eMail is a literary work from an individual writer's own
> "creativity". A receiver can do anything possible about handling an
> eMail, but should refrain from imposing "rules" to the writer, unless
> there is a mutual consent. From time to time in the past, I did get
> questions from various contacts about what was I doing. Upon describing
> my rationales, most accepted them. Some even started to mimic my
> approaches. However, feedback on this List was exceptionally strong, it
> was quite distracting. Thus, I tried my best to minimize the rough
> spots, so that we could carry on the technical discussions.
>
> 1)  "On 2022-12-01 23:54, nanog wrote: ...  1) Your emails do not
> conform to the list standards (changing subject lines with every reply
> making it impossible to digest or follow.) ...   ":
>
>The above from you was the most recent feedback that I got. It
> stirred up my curiosity on this topic again. Since I had some slack time
> during the past few days, I decided to look into the "threading". I have
> been using ThunderBird eMail client software ever since its
> introduction, but never bothered about using its Message Threads
> facility because my own subject line tagging technique seemed to be
> sufficient. After a bit of fiddling, I was able to get ThunderBird to
> display messages organized in threads. Below is one such example. As you
> can see, my practice of continuously prefixing timestamps to the
> "Subject" line of messages in a thread seems to conform to ThunderBird's
> mechanism! Now, I would appreciate very much to see an example of how
> your eMail system handles the message threads. So that we can compare
> notes. Thanks,
>
>
> Q. E. D.
>
> Happy Holidays!
>
> Abe (2022-12-16 10:04 EST)
>
> --
> This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
> www.avast.com
>

RE: 202212160543.AYC Re: eMail Conventions

[Kord Martin]

> Most email clients assume that a change to the subject line (other than 
> adding "Re:" to the front) indicates that the sender wants to discuss a new 
> topic related to but meaningly different from the last.

When I managed a help desk, my users would constantly complain that they 
weren't receiving updates on their service tickets. I was able to verify that 
tickets were being updated and that the users were indeed receiving the e-mails 
... however Outlook was sorting them into new conversations and then hiding 
them behind the "Focused" inbox. 

Sometimes you streamline your experience, other times you organize yourself 
into a bigger mess.


K

Re: 202212160543.AYC Re: eMail Conventions

[William Herrin]

On Fri, Dec 16, 2022 at 7:05 AM Abraham Y. Chen  wrote:
> As you
> can see, my practice of continuously prefixing timestamps to the
> "Subject" line of messages in a thread seems to conform to ThunderBird's
> mechanism!

Ave,

Most email clients assume that a change to the subject line (other
than adding "Re:" to the front) indicates that the sender wants to
discuss a new topic related to but meaningly different from the last.
So they start a new thread for it. This is a perfectly reasonable
inference. If they didn't behave this way then when folks replied to a
message but started a new topic with a subject line change, the email
client would intermingle the new topic messages with the old,
defeating the purpose of message threading. Perhaps Thunderbird does
this. I don't know. I haven't used it in many years.

By adding meaningless changes to the subject line, you cause most
threaded mail clients to believe that you have started a new topic
when you have not. This makes a mess of their inboxes every time you
go on a posting spree.

Personally, I've found your email behavior so distracting that I've
deleted the bulk of your email without opening it and even considered
programming my mail client to delete any messages with "20.*AYC" in
the subject line. I doubt I'm the only one. That's the price you pay
for abusing the subject header: disruptive people get ignored.

Regards,
Bill Herrin


--
For hire. https://bill.herrin.us/resume/

Re: 202212160543.AYC Re: eMail Conventions

[Pim van Stam]

Hello Abe,

Actually there is a RFC describing Netiquette Guidelines from 1995 (rfc 1855), 
with guidelines still valid today.
See https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1855

Best regards,

Pim van Stam

> On 16 Dec 2022, at 16:05, Abraham Y. Chen  wrote:
> 
> Dear Bill, Et al.:
> 
> 0)  Ever since I signed up to the NANOG List, I have been getting complaints 
> about my eMail style, format, etc. Since I could not find any document that 
> clearly stated the guidelines and no one cared about providing an explicit 
> lead, it has been a very frustrating experience. As I explained previously, 
> my best understanding of an eMail is that it is an electronic equivalent of 
> the traditional postal letter. We should start from following the old 
> business correspondence protocol and then enhance it by taking advantage of 
> the available electronic facility. Beyond that, an eMail is a literary work 
> from an individual writer's own "creativity". A receiver can do anything 
> possible about handling an eMail, but should refrain from imposing "rules" to 
> the writer, unless there is a mutual consent. From time to time in the past, 
> I did get questions from various contacts about what was I doing. Upon 
> describing my rationales, most accepted them. Some even started to mimic my 
> approaches. However, feedback on this List was exceptionally strong, it was 
> quite distracting. Thus, I tried my best to minimize the rough spots, so that 
> we could carry on the technical discussions.
> 
> 1)  "On 2022-12-01 23:54, nanog wrote: ...  1) Your emails do not conform to 
> the list standards (changing subject lines with every reply making it 
> impossible to digest or follow.) ...   ":
> 
>   The above from you was the most recent feedback that I got. It stirred up 
> my curiosity on this topic again. Since I had some slack time during the past 
> few days, I decided to look into the "threading". I have been using 
> ThunderBird eMail client software ever since its introduction, but never 
> bothered about using its Message Threads facility because my own subject line 
> tagging technique seemed to be sufficient. After a bit of fiddling, I was 
> able to get ThunderBird to display messages organized in threads. Below is 
> one such example. As you can see, my practice of continuously prefixing 
> timestamps to the "Subject" line of messages in a thread seems to conform to 
> ThunderBird's mechanism! Now, I would appreciate very much to see an example 
> of how your eMail system handles the message threads. So that we can compare 
> notes. Thanks,
> 
> 
> Q. E. D.
> 
> Happy Holidays!
> 
> Abe (2022-12-16 10:04 EST)
> 
> -- 
> This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
> www.avast.com

Re: 202212160543.AYC Re: eMail Conventions

[Brielle]

If you are running thunderbird, all you need to do is hit Reply and respond 
accordingly, maybe trimming off some extra fluff at the end of the quoted 
message.

The defaults in Thunderbird are pretty ‘normal’ in terms of what the bulk of 
the world expects a message reply to be.  It handles quoting, adding the Re to 
the title, etc.

Your strange way of responding by purposely changing the subject and adding a 
time stamp, and no quoting or indication of the original message (ie ‘On X date 
at X time, Joe Smith wrote…’) with ‘1)’ is just excessive and designed to draw 
out the process needlessly.

Just use the standard Thunderbird reply function, hit Reply, and go!

I once told a drama queen (using her own words),

“Don’t tell me that you feel like you are on a journey with Ewoks to the fires 
of the molten core of andor or that your mind is drowning in excruciating 
sensory overload like what happened one evening 15 years ago when only you were 
present.

Just say, ‘my hand is numb’ and stop wasting 10 minutes of my time for what 
takes 4 words to say.”

This isn’t the place to do your artistic flowery email bullshit. We talk tech 
here.  There’s two common no BS ways to respond.

Sent from my iPhone

> On Dec 16, 2022, at 8:06 AM, Abraham Y. Chen  wrote:
> 
> Dear Bill, Et al.:
> 
> 0)  Ever since I signed up to the NANOG List, I have been getting complaints 
> about my eMail style, format, etc. Since I could not find any document that 
> clearly stated the guidelines and no one cared about providing an explicit 
> lead, it has been a very frustrating experience. As I explained previously, 
> my best understanding of an eMail is that it is an electronic equivalent of 
> the traditional postal letter. We should start from following the old 
> business correspondence protocol and then enhance it by taking advantage of 
> the available electronic facility. Beyond that, an eMail is a literary work 
> from an individual writer's own "creativity". A receiver can do anything 
> possible about handling an eMail, but should refrain from imposing "rules" to 
> the writer, unless there is a mutual consent. From time to time in the past, 
> I did get questions from various contacts about what was I doing. Upon 
> describing my rationales, most accepted them. Some even started to mimic my 
> approaches. However, feedback on this List was exceptionally strong, it was 
> quite distracting. Thus, I tried my best to minimize the rough spots, so that 
> we could carry on the technical discussions.
> 
> 1)  "On 2022-12-01 23:54, nanog wrote: ...  1) Your emails do not conform to 
> the list standards (changing subject lines with every reply making it 
> impossible to digest or follow.) ...   ":
> 
>   The above from you was the most recent feedback that I got. It stirred up 
> my curiosity on this topic again. Since I had some slack time during the past 
> few days, I decided to look into the "threading". I have been using 
> ThunderBird eMail client software ever since its introduction, but never 
> bothered about using its Message Threads facility because my own subject line 
> tagging technique seemed to be sufficient. After a bit of fiddling, I was 
> able to get ThunderBird to display messages organized in threads. Below is 
> one such example. As you can see, my practice of continuously prefixing 
> timestamps to the "Subject" line of messages in a thread seems to conform to 
> ThunderBird's mechanism! Now, I would appreciate very much to see an example 
> of how your eMail system handles the message threads. So that we can compare 
> notes. Thanks,
> 
> 
> Q. E. D.
> 
> Happy Holidays!
> 
> Abe (2022-12-16 10:04 EST)
> 
> -- 
> This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
> www.avast.com

Re: 202212160543.AYC Re: eMail Conventions

[Jethro Binks]

Abe,

Since you ask, and it's coffee time on a Friday, I'll chip in.  This is not an 
invitation for an extended conversation; take or leave what I say below as you 
wish, but note my remark at the end.  The only other general remark I'd make is 
observe what others do; these are the usual norms for email conversations that 
you should probably adopt for friction-free discussion.

> As you can see, my practice of continuously prefixing timestamps to the 
> "Subject" line of messages in a thread seems to conform to ThunderBird's 
> mechanism!

I don't know about Thunderbird; but this is one of the things that you do that 
likely irks people.  Your message already carries a Date: field added to it by 
your email system when you compose and send (and displayed to recipients), you 
don't need to put another date in the Subject.  By changing the subject each 
time you respond to a point in the discussion, you mess up the threading that 
some other mail readers use -- they often rely on the Subject being, modulo a 
few accepted changes, the same for each related message -- although there are 
techniques other than relying just on Subject: too.  Just hit "reply" and type 
your response to someone's comments, perhaps appropriately quoting the direct 
points you are responding to (that's a whole other topic).

By messing with threading, you also make it very hard for people to look back 
on the list archives and read the totality of the discussion as historical 
record, which, if you're proposing changes to the operation of the Internet and 
its addressing, they may wish to do.

You don't need to put your initials there either.  We know it's from you.  The 
email system adds a From: header with your name and displays that to recipients.

If you use (e.g.) "202212160543.AYC" as some sort of 'letter reference' for 
your own purposes, I'd suggest just stating that in the body of the message, 
maybe at the bottom out of the way, rather than butchering the Subject: field.

You don't need to add "(2022-12-16 10:04 EST)" and similar after your name 
signature.  The sending time and timezone are all stored in the message 
automatically when you send it.  No-one receiving it cares that you might have 
written it at 10.04 and sent it a minute or an hour later.

> my best understanding of an eMail is that it is an electronic equivalent of 
> the traditional postal letter.

Not so much.  And anyway, because it's on a computer, the computer can 
automatically do things for you that you used to have to do manually.  Like 
adding the date and your name.  It's your own time you are wasting adding these 
things, but the more you irk people (and it doesn't take much), the less likely 
they are to engage with what you are trying to communicate and so the chances 
of you progressing your case diminish.

Jethro.


.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

Jethro R Binks, Network Manager,

Information Services Directorate, University Of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK


The University of Strathclyde is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, 
number SC015263.


From: NANOG  on behalf of 
Abraham Y. Chen 
Sent: 16 December 2022 15:05
To: nanog 
Cc: NANOG ; Chen, Abraham Y. 
Subject: 202212160543.AYC Re: eMail Conventions

Dear Bill, Et al.:

0)  Ever since I signed up to the NANOG List, I have been getting
complaints about my eMail style, format, etc. Since I could not find any
document that clearly stated the guidelines and no one cared about
providing an explicit lead, it has been a very frustrating experience.
As I explained previously, my best understanding of an eMail is that it
is an electronic equivalent of the traditional postal letter. We should
start from following the old business correspondence protocol and then
enhance it by taking advantage of the available electronic facility.
Beyond that, an eMail is a literary work from an individual writer's own
"creativity". A receiver can do anything possible about handling an
eMail, but should refrain from imposing "rules" to the writer, unless
there is a mutual consent. From time to time in the past, I did get
questions from various contacts about what was I doing. Upon describing
my rationales, most accepted them. Some even started to mimic my
approaches. However, feedback on this List was exceptionally strong, it
was quite distracting. Thus, I tried my best to minimize the rough
spots, so that we could carry on the technical discussions.

1)  "On 2022-12-01 23:54, nanog wrote: ...  1) Your emails do not
conform to the list standards (changing subject lines with every reply
making it impossible to digest or follow.) ...   ":

   The above from you was the most recent feedback that I got. It
stirred up my curiosity on this topic again. Since I had some slack time
during the past few days, I decided to look into the "threading". I have
been using ThunderBird eMail client software ever since its
introduction, but never bothe