[Coco] Java for 6809 (Re: your own album in the CoCo Gallery)

[John W. Linville]

On Wed, Apr 09, 2008 at 10:05:49PM -0500, Roger Taylor wrote:
> At 08:45 PM 4/9/2008, you wrote:
>> On Wed, Apr 09, 2008 at 08:23:50PM -0500, Roger Taylor wrote:
>> > I like this feature... a random image from the CoCo Gallery is now shown 
>> in
>> > the upper right sidebar of all pages of the site, even in the gallery.
>>
>> I don't know if Roger accidentally hijacked this thread or if this
>> is a subtle attempt to distract us... :-)

> In what way is a thread hijacked?  I posted a new topic and haven't been 
> following the Java 6809 arguments past the 2nd or 3rd message a few days 
> ago.
> My message was completely disassociated with any of the Java 6809 talks.
>
> Baffled here.  :)

Actually, you didn't really post a new topic.  You merely changed
the Subject: line while replying to (presumably) the last message
you saw on the list.

Your message contains the following email headers:

Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2008 20:23:50 -0500
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
From: Roger Taylor <operator at coco3.com>
In-Reply-To: <20080409122823.GB26297 at tuxdriver.com>
References: <20080408132125.GB2944 at tuxdriver.com> <ftheoe+i13g at eGroups.com>
        <20080409122823.GB26297 at tuxdriver.com>

Notice the In-Reply-To: line?  Your email client inserts this
to indicate the Message-ID of the message to which you replied.
Other email clients use that in order to construct a "threaded"
message display, allowing people to distinguish what messages are
replies to exactly which other messages, etc.  The References: line is
used similarly, although it refers to more than just the immediately
preceding message.

You only have In-Reply-To: and References: lines when replying to
an existing thread.  That is why you should send a new message when
trying to start a new topic rather than just replying.

Hth!

John

P.S.  Many people presume that email readers just use the Subject:
line for threaded message displays, and some do fall back on that
if the Subject: matches something else in the mailbox but those
other headers are missing.  However if you think about it, relying
solely on Subject: would not be very useful -- you wouldn't be able
to distinguish between a reply to the last message in a thread and
one to an earlier message within the same thread.
-- 
John W. Linville
linville at tuxdriver.com