Subject: Re: #1008 USEFOR 1.5 "followup": summary so far

From: John Stanley <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 10:25:08 -0700 (PDT)

"Ruud H.G. van Tol" <rvtol@xxxxxxxxxxxx>:

>To thread on Subject, doesn't mean that only the value of the 
>Subject: header is used. Other information that can be used is 
>the Date and the attributions  ...

Simply remarkable. If it isn't sorting by the Subject header, then it 
isn't "sort by Subject", it's "sort by date" or "make stuff up sorting".

>Threading on Subject, 

Does not exist. Subject is a sortable but not threadable header. There is 
no defined relationship between articles based on the Subject header. Two 
articles with the identical same subject may or may not be related at all, 
much less be parent and child. 

"Ruud H.G. van Tol" <rvtol@xxxxxxxxxxxx>:

>Threading is done that way. By some news reader clients. But I 
>already said that.

No, threading is NOT done that way, by any news reader clients. It's 
called "sorting by Subject", not threading, because there is NO defined 
relationship between articles based on the Subject header. It's a guessing 
game which works sometimes and fails miserably at other times, because 
there is a sometimes similarity in the Subject headers of related 
articles and a sometimes similarity in the Subject headers of unrelated 
articles.

And more than one person has already said that.

>Some people even like it that 
>way, so they activate the option in their news client.

News reading clients are free to SORT articles any way they please. This 
does not mean they are threading them. The problem with what you are 
saying is not that sorting isn't done by some clients that way or that 
people don't like articles sorted that way, it is that you keep claiming 
that this is "threading", and it simply ain't so.

Eivind is right. Listen to him.

Richard Clayton <richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

>apologies, I was imprecise I meant "attempt to locate specific thread
>using Subject (fuzzy matching as needed) and place into position using
>other clues such as Date"

You're still only almost right. To locate a SPECIFIC thread you need a
References header. You cannot differentiate between threads by using the 
Subject header, since the Subject header has no defined relationship to a 
thread, and certainly not a specific thread. Using the References header, 
you do not have to guess using "other clues", you have an explicit 
statement as to the parental relationships of articles. A begat B begat C 
begat D ...

> I think it is :)  I like threads. 

First of all, you liking "threads" doesn't make them necessary. And 
second, sorting by Subject has nothing to do with threads, so please stop 
pretending that it does. And third, this issue of the References header 
has nothing at all to do with sorting by Subject, so stop worrying.

---

From: "Ruud H.G. van Tol" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 22:49:32 +0200

John Stanley:
> Ruud H.G. van Tol:

> isn't "sort by Subject", it's "sort by date" or "make stuff up

You obviously missed the "only" in the first sentence that you quote
from my text. With "threading on Subject", the Subject is an important
value, but a combination of values like Subject + Date +
part-of-the-body
is needed to find relations on which to thread.

> It's a guessing game which works sometimes and fails miserably at
> other times

I never said it isn't or doesn't.

> The problem with what you
> are saying is not that sorting isn't done by some clients that way or
> that people don't like articles sorted that way, it is that you keep
> claiming that this is "threading", and it simply ain't so.

It is threading, because the software uses whatever it finds to
detect followup-relations between messages, and presents them in a
tree-structure just like if there was a References-header to go by.

Such algorithms are also nice to use with archives of messages from
before the Received-header. Example:
http://groups.google.co.uk/groups?threadm=anews.Aucbvax.1635

-- 
Grtz, Ruud