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

From: "Ruud H.G. van Tol" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 08:21:23 +0200

John Stanley:
> Richard Clayton:

>> I suspect (guessing here of course) that most of the people who went
>> for #2 would agree that readers often thread on Subject since that's
>> the reality -- but we'd all (another guess) would like to make it
>> far less necessary to do so
> 
> There is never a necessity to sort by Subject (not "thread", since
> Subject isn't a threadable header.). If it isn't ever necessary, we
> cannot make it "far less necessary".

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 (and further whatever the author 
of the news client chooses as feasible).

Threading on Subject, is also used to explain why some users see a 
new thread when others don't. In that case the change in Subject 
overrules the References.

-- 
Grtz, Ruud

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 09:22:41 +0200

--On tirsdag, mai 31, 2005 11:25:58 -0700 John Stanley <[email-masked]> 
wrote:

> What is really confusing about your mixmaster approach to this is that
> when you say:
>
> 1) All "followups" have a References: header.
>
> I don't know if you mean "current standards say", "our draft says", "we
> want to say", or what.

I thought this was sufficiently clear from the original message:

> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> Subject: USEFOR 1.5: relation between a followup and a References: header?
>
> USEFOR version -04 states:
>
>  A "followup" is an article containing a response to the contents of
>  an earlier article (the followup's "precursor" indicated in the
>  "References" header).
>
>  Discussion has revealed two possibilities:
> - All "followup"s (as defined here) have a References: header.
> - There can be articles that are a "followup" that do not have
> "References:" headers
>
> The other half of the problem is whether there can be articles that
> have References: headers which are not "followups".
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> I'd like to have the 11 or so people who have spoken up on the issue (and
> anyone who cares to speak up otherwise) identify themselves as having one
> of four positions on what USEFOR should say about this issue:

I'm only talking about what USEFOR should say.
This group's mandate is (among other things) getting USEFOR out the door. 
We can't change what people are currently doing, we can't change what other 
standards say - but we CAN change what USEFOR says.

As to your comment:

> As for RFC2822 not using the specific term "followup": been there, covered
> that. It uses the generic term "replies". Every reply posted as news is a
> "followup".  Every one. Each time someone replies, in a news context, they
> are posting an article that is "a response to another". If you can find a
> single person here who would call an article I post, in response to
> another, which says "you are wrong when you say X because..." NOT a
> followup, please trot them out. I don't believe they exist. And if they
> think it is not a reply, then they are clearly deluded.

I don't see the logic in that. Most of the work of standards is to define 
terms to have a meaning *in the context of the standards* that is not 
identical to an "intuitive" understanding of what the word means.
If we can't define a specific meaning for a word like "followup", we have 
to invent new words like "froobnitz" every time we want a term with a 
specific definition - and I don't see how that aids the clarity of the 
standards.

If you post a reply to my message in news, and don't include a References: 
header, I'm perfectly happy with saying that "this is not a followup as 
defined in USEFOR".

If that's the consensus position of the group.

                                 Harald

---

From: Eivind Tagseth <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 09:21:58 +0200

> of the news client chooses as feasible).

That's not threading, that's guessing.

> overrules the References.

The subject never overrules the References header.  The newsreader may be set
up to show subthreads with a Subject change as if they were a new thread, but
that doesn't change the information the References header is conveying, and
it doesn't change how the references header should be treaded when following
up to an article in the subthread.

Eivind

---

From: "Ruud H.G. van Tol" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 10:14:59 +0200

Eivind Tagseth:
> Ruud H.G. van Tol:

> That's not threading, that's guessing.

Threading is done that way. By some news reader clients. But I 
already said that. I didn't say that I like it.

> The subject never overrules the References header.

I just mentioned when it does. Some people even like it that 
way, so they activate the option in their news client. Some 
news clients even came with that option activated. There may 
even be news clients that do it and that can not be told not 
to do it.

-- 
Grtz, Ruud

---

From: Eivind Tagseth <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 10:27:02 +0200

> even be news clients that do it and that can not be told not 

It still doesn't overrule the References header.  This is why it is 
important to describe the References header for what it _means_ not
how some people expect news readers to _display_ it.

The references header describes the parental relation between the
article and it's precursors, the subject header can never override 
this.  

A followup agent has to obey some rules when following up to
an article with a references header, the subject header can never
override this.  If a followup agent ignores the references header
when creating a followup just because the subject has changed, it
would be broken.

If a newsreader chooses to display an article with a references header
as a new thread, just because the subject was different than it's
parent, then it is free to do so, since the references header
shouldn't put requirements on how newsreaders should display it's 
meaning to the user.

Eivind

---

From: "Ruud H.G. van Tol" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 11:56:52 +0200

> It still doesn't overrule the References header. 

Aaargh. The particular news reader shows two threads where 
the References header represents one. You just chose another 
interpretation of 'overrules' than the one I wrote about, 
and then say that it doesn't. Let's please leave it at that.

-- 
Grtz, Ruud

---

From: Richard Clayton <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 15:00:16 +0100

In message <[email-masked]>, John
Stanley <[email-masked]> writes

>Richard Clayton <richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>
>>I suspect (guessing here of course) that most of the people who went for
>>#2 would agree that readers often thread on Subject since that's the
>>reality -- but we'd all (another guess) would like to make it far less
>>necessary to do so
>
>There is never a necessity to sort by Subject (not "thread", since Subject 
>isn't a threadable header.). 

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"

>If it isn't ever necessary, 

I think it is :)  I like threads. So do almost all the people who use
the software I designed. That's quite a few.

>we cannot make it 
>"far less necessary".

- -- 
richard                                              Richard Clayton

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.         Benjamin Franklin

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 11:19:02 GMT

>other clues such as Date"

Which is sometimes referred to as "Poor man's threading" (there is even an
ID with those words in it).

But USEFOR does not define "threading" as a specific technical term, so it
means whatever it means "out there in the real world", where is is
sometime used loosely to describe several threading-like activities. That
loose "real world" meaning is plenty good enough for the limited use of
the term in our drafts.

>the software I designed. That's quite a few.

OTOH, pure threading is not always the best. I was recently reviewing a
discussion on this WG dating from 2001. A large tree of sub-threads was
generated over several days and, reading those articles in the usual "depth
first traversal", I found that I kept coming across messages which
predated (and appeared to contradict) messages from those same people
which I had already read. The problem was that people were replying in one
sub-thread of the tree with full knowledge of what people had said in
parallel sub-threads.

I managed to work it all out, but I concluded that the whole discussion
would have made more sense if I had just sorted it on Date within Subject.

-- 
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133   Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
Email: [email-masked]      Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K.
PGP: 2C15F1A9      Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5

---

From: "Ruud H.G. van Tol" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 15:05:31 +0200

Charles Lindsey schreef:

> the whole discussion 

For mailing-lists, I read-by-date-only. For mailing-lists that 
share a large group of contributors, I even let those messages 
be delivered to a common mailbox, and read-by-date-only.
I rather use date-received than the Date-header.

-- 
Grtz, Ruud

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 11:39:54 GMT

>when creating a followup just because the subject has changed, it

OTOH, I would have some sympathy for the man who decided that the new
Subject had changed so far from the original topic that it was really a
new thread, and who therefore manually trimmed all the earlier articles
out of the References header.

Yes, that would break the letter of our drafts, but it would be well
within the spirit.

---

From: Seth Breidbart <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 13:53:11 -0400 (EDT)

"Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]> wrote:

> OTOH, I would have some sympathy for the man who decided that the
> new Subject had changed so far from the original topic that it was
> really a new thread, and who therefore manually trimmed all the
> earlier articles out of the References header.

If the connection between his article and its predecessor were as
tenuous as "That reminds me of an interesting story . . ." that would
be fine.  Otherwise, he's breaking the connection between his article
and its parent, which is likely not such a good idea.

> Yes, that would break the letter of our drafts, but it would be well

But then, we can't control user behavior anyway.

Seth

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 13:03:31 GMT

>and its parent, which is likely not such a good idea.

Sure. What I meant was that there might have been a long thread with "Old
Subject" which morphed into "New Subject". And, after a couple of "News
Subject" articles somebody might decide it wasn't anything to do with "Old
Subject" anymore and so, when generating the next followup, he might prune
all the "Old Subject" articles out of the References, just leaving the two
"New Subject" articles.

Technically in breach of the draft, but quite sensible nevertheless.

---

From: Seth Breidbart <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2005 12:05:21 -0400 (EDT)

> Technically in breach of the draft, but quite sensible nevertheless.

Of course, it would have no effect (on any newsreader I know), unless
the parent and grandparent articles hadn't arrived so the newsreader
didn't know they were part of the old thread.

I thought you meant removing the entire References header, which I
don't think is sensible in an article with (e.g.) 3 levels of quoting.

>>But then, we can't control user behavior anyway.

So this is all moot.

Seth