Replying to Digest Post(s)

[Matthew Saltzman]

On Fri, 2008-09-12 at 17:39 -0430, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> On Fri, 2008-09-12 at 12:45 -0700, Rick Stevens wrote:
> > NO!  NEVER, EVER reply to a digest.  There are NO exceptions.  The
> > proper way to ask questions or start new threads is to create a NEW
> > message with an appropriate subject line and content and send it to
> > fedora-list at redhat.com.
> 
> Digests are meant to be a read-only distribution mechanism, but there
> are times when someone might want to reply to a message contained in a
> digest. Obviously the threading is lost anyway, since "replying to a
> message within a digest" is not a supported operation because most of
> the header info is lost. Furthermore, the digest itself is not a list
> message, thus has no thread of its own to mess up. However using "reply"
> instead of composing a fresh message gives you the chance to quote the
> original message without a lot of nasty cutting and pasting, so I
> wouldn't rule it out absolutely.

Most mail readers understand digests in MIME format, where the
individual messages (with headers intact) are accessible.  That's how I
get my digests.

Maybe MIME should be the default for digests?

> 
> > The ONLY time you should reply to a message is when you're commenting
> > on the content of the message.  Anything else (changing a subject
> > line, etc.) is hijacking the thread and is severely frowned upon.
> 
> Actually I think changing the Subject is a Good Thing (tm) in this
> specific case. Since threading doesn't depend on the Subject anyway,
> there's no problem.

Agreed, if you must do this, changing the subject line is about the only
hint you can give to Mailman or mail clients that it's part of a thread.
I think Mailman makes at least some feeble attempt to thread based on
subject if other header info isn't available.

> 
> poc
> 
> 
-- 
                Matthew Saltzman

Clemson University Math Sciences
mjs AT clemson DOT edu
http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs