Thread hijacking (i.e. don't use reply unless you are REALLY replying)

[Nathan Sprangers]

On Fri, 2004-12-17 at 19:03 +0100, Magnus Therning wrote:
> FYI:
> 
>  When starting a new thread don't just reply to a message sent by
>  someone else and clear the subject line. Not all e-mail and news
>  clients behave like yours and will thread messages correctly based on
>  the "Message-ID:", "In-Reply-To:" and "References:" headers embedded in
>  the messages. Only programs which don't comply with Internet standards
>  sort messages by subject and call that "threading". When you simply
>  change the subject of a message, all of the threading information
>  remains intact and your new "thread" simply continues at the end of the
>  old one. This is called thread hijacking.
> 
>  By doing this, you're shooting yourself in the foot twice over. First
>  of all, people following a thread don't want to see unrelated messages
>  cropping up in the middle of it. The most complacent will just delete
>  your message without reading it, others will killfile you, some having
>  complained to you asking you to learn how to post. Secondly, those who
>  aren't interested in the hijacked thread and who have set their
>  programs to ignore it won't even see your message.
> 
>  If you want to start a new thread then use your mailer's/newsreader's
>  "New Message" function. This will start a fresh thread of your own
>  without any traces of previous threads.
> 
> Taken from the page:
> 
>  http://linux.sgms-centre.com/misc/netiquette.php

Thank you for posting this.  I'm using Evolution as my mail client and
for the longest time I thought that this was a bug in its thread view!
I've added a short synopsis of this to the ListiQuette wiki page.  If
there are others who have not read the other parts of this wiki page I
encourage you to visit http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/ListiQuette.
Thanks,
~Nathan