From: John Stanley <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 15:08:01 -0700 (PDT)

Seth Breidbart <sethb@xxxxxxxxx>:

>What part of "me, as a reader" didn't you understand?  The last word?

Already covered. And still, your deference to the poster is well and
good, but guessing nonetheless, and not in any way universal.

>When I post, I _intend_ that others read my post.  Obviously, I can't
>enforce that; 

Glad to see left field is still alive. The issue at hand is not whether 
they read your article or not, it is how your article is displayed when
they read it. Do you have control over that? No. Is your "intent" worth
much, given you have no control and no mechanism defined for describing
your intent? No.

>When I post a followup in response to a specific article, with a
>References header, am I indicating that my article is part of a
>thread, or am I indicating my intention that my article be treated as
>part of that thread?

Irrelevant question, since the issue is not "is this part of a thread",
but "do you have control over how it is displayed?"

>> Oh, I see where you get your SWAG number. YOUR newsreader shows you things 
>> the way YOU want them 99% of the time, thus everyone elses shows them 
>> things the way you want them 99% of the time.

>No, their newsreader shows them things the way they want.

Yes, exactly. So your control over how they see things is nada, and your
intentions about same are meaningless.

>Really?  If I put a References header into a new article, your
>newsreader (as you have it configured) won't show my article as part
>of the thread containing the messages referred to in that References
>header?

It shows things the way I specify. If I say not to, you have no control.
You certainly can't say "show this next to that". 

>> The fact remains: poster "intentions" on how messages are displayed,
>> or in what order, are irrelevant simply because the expectation of
>> control is specious.

>Let's remove the Newsgroups header, too, then, for the same reason.

Left field is active. I don't know what "same reason" you think applies,
but the control of the newsgroups to which an article is posted IS the
posters; how the article is displayed is up to the reader. The same
kinds of arguments do not apply to the Newsgroups  header.