Changing the subject line (Was: Format program?)

[Amedee Van Gasse (u2s)]

On Wed, October 21, 2009 02:10, bqz69 wrote:

> Please do not change the subject line - then the message do not follow the
> thread any  longer :-)

That is not true. Changing the subject line does *not* break the thread. A
sensible mail client (or usenet client if you use the mail<->news
interface) looks at the References and In-Reply-To headers:

References: <3c41e3b10910201527l391e0615kcbd0e19543cbc398 at mail.gmail.com>
     <da9872c08da16c58594613ae89b0ff50.squirrel at amedee.be>
In-Reply-To: <da9872c08da16c58594613ae89b0ff50.squirrel at amedee.be>

A broken mail client will dump or ignore References and In-Reply-To, and
this will break the thread even if the subject line is not changed.
IOW, if you see breakage, your MUA is broken.


OTOH if you wanted to say that someone should start a new thread for a new
question, then you are absolutely right. Thread hijacking is not nice.

-- 
Amedee