James Wilkinson wrote: > Ed Greshko wrote: >> 1. If one wishes to change the name of a topic it is not sufficient to >> simply reply to a given topic and change the subject. The headers in the >> reply to the original topic will remain intact and will not be broken into a >> separate thread by some/most (I didn't take a survey) mail readers. > > Is this actually desired, though? Usually it is. Otherwise, why mess with the subject line at all? Normally the subject line is altered to say: "Now talking about this" (Was: Talking about that) This happens normally not with the OP but when the content of the message strays from the original question/subject to something entirely different. > Sometimes it will be -- a correspondent may wish to take one throwaway > line and effectively start a new topic based on that concept. In such a > case, a new thread might be the Right Thing. > > But usually, a topic will drift over a number of posts. My experience is > that on most forums the subject will drift and only some time later > someone will think to change the subject line. Correct, and since they are changing the subject line they are indicating the topic has changed it is logical that the a new thread is desired. > In this case, deliberately breaking the thread is *not* what is wanted, > since it will separate the drifted topic into two threads -- the If the new subject is of the one I described above, it is easy to determine the original thread. Search on subject. Sorry if I was not clear. But I'm talking about situations where the original topic was "How do I clean an oven" that has stray into "Why a Ford is better than a Buick". > original drifted messages and other responses, and the split topic with > the new title. Usually these will sort some way apart in the subject > list, readers will not be aware of the other thread, and you will end up > with related branches of the same conversation in multiple places. This > is usually what the users of threaded e-mail clients *explicitly* wish > to avoid. > > Perhaps you would like correspondents to post one short message in the > old thread pointing readers to a new separate thread for the diverged > topic. I have not found this to be accepted practice on mailing lists or > Usenet. Others may feel that simply changing the name of the thread > later (so at least readers can identify that these posts are not on the > original topic and ignore them if they wish) is easier.
