[Wylug-help] Starting New Threads

[Smylers]

Roger writes:

> Sorry for the double post - I forgot to edit the Subject...

Hi. Actually, editing the subject line doesn't start a new thread
either. When you wish to make a post on a new topic, please send a new
mail to wylug-help at wylug.org.uk (or wylug-discuss@) rather than replying
to an existing one.

When you reply to a message, mail clients put headers into your message
indicating which thread it belongs to and what it is a reply to. For
people who use a threaded view to read their mail, your message will
appear to be part of t'other message's thread.

This may mean some people miss it (if they've already decided that the
other thread isn't something they are interested in, so are skipping
over all of it), or that your message is later harder to find (because
it's hidden inside a different thread).

For example see the web archive, where changing the subject to 'RAID
question' hasn't prevented the message from being part of the DHCP
thread: http://mailman.lug.org.uk/pipermail/wylug-help/2012-July/

For those interested, the gory details are in the In-Reply-To: and
References: headers. These are typically hidden by default, but mail
clients generally have a way of letting you view the full headers of a
message if you're curious.

If you use a mail client which lets you edit the headers on a message
you're sending, Mutt for example, then you can start a new thread by
replying to a previous message then manually deleting those headers (but
it's probably easier and safer just to get into the habit of sending a
new mail).

Cheers

Smylers
-- 
http://twitter.com/Smylers2