Re: Reply to a message in the Web presentation.
On Tue 11 Feb 2020 at 10:53:45 (-0800), peter@easthope.ca wrote:
>
> Now we can see the result of the test.
>
> Messages
> https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2020/02/msg00416.html
> and
> https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2020/02/msg00420.html
> both thread back to your reply which threads back to my original
> message. They have the same References. 416 was issued with an
> In-Reply-To field; 420 was issued without In-Reply-To.
>
> So, for a 2nd reply at least, the list software maintains the thread
> without In-Reply-To. Consistent with casual observations a few years
> back.
>
> We might hypothesize a problem in a later generation. Then do further
> tests or study the source. =8~( At present I'm not so eager.
And so you've tested one feature of one piece of software on the Internet.
Out of … ? A long way to go.
Mail clients are at liberty to truncate the list of references whose
length can get out of hand. How they prune it is not specified. So
robustness of threading is improved by including both, even though
the in-reply-to is usually duplicated by the last item in the references.
Also, some mailers put human-friendly information into the in-reply-to,
which has a freer format than the references.
> This is a nice example of "Less is More".
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimalism_(computing)
But not of the robustness principle. Other email clients might not
behave in the way you expect them to.
> Thanks for challenging my claim. Without your reply I probably
> wouldn't have made the test.
Cheers,
David.
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