HiJacking Threads Was: hostapd for Fedora 10

[Patrick O'Callaghan]

On Sat, Jan 3, 2009 at 6:18 AM, Ed Greshko <Ed.Greshko at greshko.com> wrote:
> Aaron Konstam wrote:
>>
>>> You have committed one of the cardinal sins of mail list postings.
>>> You've hijacked a thread.....
>>>
>>> I've deleted the "References" header from this message so it should
>>> appear as a new thread.
>>>
>>> Don't reply to a message, and change the subject to your choice....
>>> that is hijacking.   Breaks threading an gives people an upset tummy.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> On my machine in evolution it appears as part of the same thread. There
>> is obviously something I don't understand about the complaints about
>> this that people keep making.
>>
> Yes....  I probably should have removed a few more headers as well to
> totally break it out.   But, now this reply will be out of thread with
> your response.
>
> Bottom line....  People start new messages rather than trying to reply
> to an old one and then change the subject and all....  So, now that it
> is completely mucked over....  :-)

It's worth pointing out that RFC-standard threading is controlled by
the In-Reply-To header, not by the Subject, i.e. conforming mail
clients pay *no attention* to the Subject header when displaying
threads. People who hijack threads and plead that they "fixed" the
Subject line should be told about this so they don't do it again.

poc