Michael Naumann <mnaumann@giga-stream.de> [2002-11-03 16:19:09 +0100]: > 03.11.2002 04:29:40, Rob Weir <rweir@softhome.net> wrote: > > [Please start a new thread for a new question, it makes it much easier > > for people to follow the list and makes it more likely that you'll get > > an answer.] > > I'm not sure I understand what you want to say with this. > Didn't I start a new thread.? Or was there already an equal named thread ? > I'm quiet new to this list, so maybe I didn't get it. This is not an uncommon confusion. Can I have your ear for a moment? Please let me explain. You message can be reviewed in the archive: http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2002/debian-user-200210/msg06497.html There you can see that you generated that message as a reply. In-reply-to: <200210310931.KAA02370@mach.vub.ac.be> References: <20021031024723.HJCG14348.tomts22-srv.bellnexxia.net@there> <200210310931.KAA02370@mach.vub.ac.be> You replied to a message "Re: blank LCD monitor". Your message referenced both it and the previous message in that thread. In the archive the references are also links. If you click there you will go to the referenced message. But that is not all that being threaded does for you. Let's look at it from the threaded view. http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2002/debian-user-200210/thrd13.html#06491 You message is threaded by virtue of being a reply in the thread of discussion about "blank LCD monitor". This is in the list archive. But most mailers will show it the same way. Your message will be displayed as being part of the thread and the thread will be manipulated in one action. When I kill a thread in a mail reader it kills the entire thread, your message as well, all at one time. A little confusing in the archive, but not in mailers, is that the archive splits over months and so the next month contains Rob's reply and there is no archive threading across months. But mailers will display it since all of the messages are in a mailbox until you delete them. Normally in a mail reader the entire thread would be shown. Therefore you did not start a new thread. You replied to a previous one and only changed the subject. Changing the subject does not start a new thread. It just changes the subject. Threads are maintained by the "References:" headers. If you want to start a new thread then you need to either 1) start a new message and send it to the list, which is the preferred method. Or 2) be sure to change the subject, delete the In-Reply-To: header, delete the References: header. The first option certainly seems easier then doing the second option. In general what you did by replying to an existing thread is called "thread stealing". That is considered a rudeness. It is like barging into conversation between other people in the middle, interrupting them, and then shooting off in a completely different direction. Right there in the middle of a discussion is this other person trying to start something up! How rude! You can see how that could be viewed that way. Is it always rude to thread steal by changing the subject? No, and many times changing the subject is the right thing to do. To be specific just changing the subject is not the same as thread stealing. When thread drift occurs this is frequently appropriate. A discussion of one thing mutates into a discussion of something else but perhaps not of interest to the original thread. Therefore the author will change the subject to show this. This is not really thread stealing because the flow was directly connected to the original thread. It is just the drift of discussion. A real example from not too long ago was a thread titled "Make Debian better" which drifted into a discussion about broken home and end keys. csj correctly kept the same thread but politely changed the subject to "Home and end keys (was Re: Make Debian better)" so that we reading the discussion could see exactly how the discussion flowed. A good illustration of when changing the subject was quite appropriate. I myself in this message am doing this. Since this message itself has nothing to do with installing debian but only with a subtopic I have changed the subject line. But it flowed out of the original thread of discussion and I expect it to be threaded with it. But to give readers a topic I have titled the subject with what I thought was most appropriate. People not interested will skip it. Or perhaps people that are interested will read it when they would not have read the previous part of the thread of discussion. There is actually quite a bit of order to the seeming chaos of a usenet discussion. Hope this helps. Bob
Attachment:
pgpHXor3QLAOZ.pgp
Description: PGP signature