Re: hijacked threads - was: Re: question -- MIDRANGE-L

JT wrote:
> This is a dysfunction in MailMan software, not a people problem.
> Iow, if the software can't match up by subject line, then who's fault
> is that?  Even worse, using MailMan as a data store is..

That statement is completely incorrect ... Mailman is doing EXACTLY what it is supposed to do ... what all mailing list software is supposed to do. It is indeed a people problem.

Additionally, Mailman is *NOT* a data store.  It's almost
completely transient.  The mail comes in for a list, Mailman processes
it, massages it a bit, and then redistributes it.  After it's
redistributed, Mailman is no longer concerned with it in the slightest.

John Ross wrote:

> When a message gets created it gets an ID the one I am replying to
> has something like  this in the header   Message-ID:
> <40C1A767.1080408@xxxxxxxxxx>  the one Scott replied to has someyhing
>  like  Message-ID: <40C1A590.50308@xxxxxxxxxx>  but it also has
> something like References:
> <20040604131845.39041.qmail@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> In-Reply-To:
> <20040604131845.39041.qmail@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> You can see what
> this does to messages in the archives
> http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l/200406/threads.html And for
> the hijacked message
> http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l/200406/msg00144.html And for
> the new message
> http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l/200406/msg00180.html

John has explained it quite well ... Nearly all software involved with mailing list's behaves this way... this includes the archiver (MHonArc) and the list / news gateway (GMane). The archiving software actually tries to guess if the message id's don't correlate properly. That's why you'll see "Possible follow-ups" in the thread index. This means that the subject matched, but the message id didn't.

Remember, the messages are all processed by programs ... programs have this nasty habit of assuming the data they are getting is valid (especially when it looks valid). If a reply message has a message-id associated with it, the assumption is, the message is actually in response to the message that was replied to... even if the subject is different.

The *ONLY* way to avoid hijacked threads is to create a new message with a new subject.

Now, this all said ... could we move this discussion over to the MIDRANGE-NONTECH (http://lists.midrange.com/listinfo/midrange-nontech), PCTECH (http://lists.midrange.com/listinfo/pctech), or CPF0000 (http://lists.midrange.com/listinfo/cpf0000) lists? It really isn't related to midrange systems.

david

--
If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you
and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have
an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.

- George Bernard Shaw