Re: [off-topic] MS Outlook

[Brian May <bam@debian.org>]

>>>>> "Keith" == Keith G Murphy <keithmur@mindspring.com> writes:

    Keith> I just checked out Outlook98, by sending and replying to
    Keith> messages to myself, and apparently it does not provide
    Keith> "References" headers.  It does do threading of a sort,
    Keith> apparently by the subject line (with RE:).  Actually, NS
    Keith> Messenger will thread this way too, when no "References"
    Keith> header is available.  Outlook98, as well as not providing
    Keith> "References", also ignores "References": I can send a reply
    Keith> from NS Messenger, which provides the Reference header,
    Keith> with a different subject line, and Outlook does not
    Keith> recognize it as belonging to the same thread (well, MS
    Keith> calls it "Conversation").

Pauls response to your message has:

References: <[🔎] 3847FB33.981EBB20@mindspring.com>

and

X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0

So, while the References doesn't contain more then one, it still
does have a references header.

This is what I (should) have on this mail (Gnus):

References: <[🔎] 000f01bf3d54$e345c190$9515fbd1@workstation> <[🔎] 3847FB33.981EBB20@mindspring.com>

I don't understand why Paul's setup works, when most of the time it
doesn't...

Or perhaps my mail2news gateway is adding the reference header?  That
seems extremely unlikely to me though. I don't think the gateway has
enough information to do it.

That message had the following id:
<[🔎] 001c01bf3dc3$1725bf10$9515fbd1@workstation>

    Keith> You could make an argument that threading by subject only
    Keith> is OK, since when subject lines are changed, that often
    Keith> means the writer is wanting to start a new thread; under
    Keith> Netscape, with no direct access to headers, he could not do
    Keith> it.  Under Pine, etc., I guess you can.

Threading by subject makes it hard to do certain actions, eg get all
messages this one references, or highlight all responses to particular
message. At least, both of these are possible with Gnus.

    Keith> It is certainly inexcusable for Outlook to ignore
    Keith> References, as well as not give any option for providing
    Keith> them.  MS is the only company I know of that wants their
    Keith> stuff to not interoperate with others'.  But NS should at
    Keith> least give you a "Terminate Thread" option on reply that
    Keith> would clear out the Reference headers.

Agreed. Not only that, but outlook by default has a "non-standard"
mechanism for quoting messages (as mentioned elsewhere). Often I get
replies from people who just insert their text within my text, and I
tend to miss it. Yuck. Not to mention replying to it...

As for terminating threads, Gnus has an option to treat a different
subject line as a new thread. This is without removing the references
heading, so people can still refer to the original message, as
required.

So... people really need to remember to change the subject line if the
topic changes (like I did with this thread).
-- 
Brian May <bam@debian.org>