[Pan-users] RE: Re: Do not find send.later

[Duncan]

Michael Walsh posted <address@hidden>, excerpted
below,  on Tue, 07 Oct 2003 15:09:27 +0100:

> On a side note.
> I notice a lot of replies don't thread for me, and the new branch of replies
> is usually started by duncan, or someone replying using pan.
> 
> Bug with headers? My mail client just doesn't like it? Or because of the two
> mailing list providers doing this mailing list?

I'm not sure where the bug is, but know the reason in a different sense.
Most of those using PAN, including me, are probably doing so thru
gmane.org, a mailing list archive stored in news form.  Thus, rather than
having our inboxes filled, we visit gmane and read and reply to the
list aka newsgroup there, using our newsreader. (PAN, of course! =:^)

It'd be easy to blame your mail client, MSWormOS Outlook.  However, I
don't know that it is honestly to blame.  I DO know, however, that gmane
goes to some lengths to convert msg-ids and references headers correctly
so replies get threaded as they should if references are used
appropriately.  However, it could still be a bug either there or in PAN,
since that is what we are using.  

OTOH, as a former beta tester for IE/OE 4-5.5 (by 6.0 I was to busy
researching my upcoming switch to Linux), I know a bit about it, anyway,
tho I never used Outlook proper.  (I had no need for its calendar and
other functionality, and DEFINITELY had no need for its additional
scriptability, in the form of VBA, used at the time for most mail
virus/worm attacks, as OE was a harder target as it didn't have the
scriptable addressbook.  Thus, tho OL 98 was available free at the time, I
stuck with OE, which served my needs at the time just fine, and since it
did news, while OL simply called on OE to handle news, so I'd need OE
anyway.)  At least with OE, it threads based on subject as well as
references headers. In fact, I don't know the status now, but at one
point, it ignored references headers entirely for mail, I believe.

Anyway, if OL is using subject parsing as well, or perhaps even
exclusively, perhaps the conversion process is changing the subject
somehow, so it might not be the references at all, but rather the subject
doing it.

I also know this.  I observed no such issues with KMail, which threads on
the references header exclusively, I believe, back when I was following
the list with it, including when I was following the list on both gmane
with PAN, and the mailing list, with KMail.   That isn't to say I know the
bug wasn't there, but I can say I didn't observe it, even with my own
posts, from PAN to gmane.  The fact that I've never seen it mentioned
elsewise also hints that it may be your mail client.  However, as I said,
that's not a given.

I'd suggest checking the subject lines.  At this point, I'd guess there
may be a difference there, and that's what OL is threading by, so with the
difference, it creates a new thread, despite the references header. 
That's my best working hypothesis at the moment, as yet entirely untested
one way or the other.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." --
Benjamin Franklin