OT - the OT tag and the Re bug.

[Jose]

I first identified this problem in the sim group, but it happens here
too. I'm sure it happens everywhere, but since I live here, this is
where I'm concerned.

The subject line of a reply universally has the letters "r" "e" and a
colon in front. The software does this automatically. But to avoid an
infinite regress ("re:re:re:re:...") the software also senses a
pre-existing "re:" and eats it first. Most software is good at that.
Some isn't.

Seems one common bug is to simply eat everything in front of the colon.
(I presume the first colon) before prepending the "re:". This has an
unfortunate side effect for those who follow a prepend (such as "OT" or
"POL") with a colon. The prepend gets eaten, and replaced with "re:",
and newsreaders who sort by subject have that chain of responses mixed
in with their on-topic subjects, negating the effect of the prepend in
the first place. The reply is still of the same thread (defined by the
message ID) as the original "OT:" post, but sorting by threads doesn't
work well, especially when only unread posts are desired.

An example of this can be seen in the "OT: Electric cars?" thread.

A solution is for posters to =not= follow a prepend with a colon. Use a
dash, or nothing at all, and this won't happen.

Just a thought.

Jose
--
There are two kinds of people in the world. Those that just want to
know what button to push, and those that want to know what happens when
they push the button.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Jim Logajan]

Jose > wrote:
> The subject line of a reply universally has the letters "r" "e" and a
> colon in front. The software does this automatically. But to avoid an
> infinite regress ("re:re:re:re:...") the software also senses a
> pre-existing "re:" and eats it first. Most software is good at that.
> Some isn't.
>
> Seems one common bug is to simply eat everything in front of the colon.

The following newsreaders used for replies in the "OT: Electric cars"
thread "do the right thing":

Xnews, KNode, Trn, Forte

The following newsreader used for replies in that thread "do the wrong
thing":

MS Outlook Express

Another MS blunder.

[Andrew Gideon]

On Sun, 27 May 2007 00:44:12 +0000, Jim Logajan wrote:


>> Seems one common bug is to simply eat everything in front of the colon.
>
> The following newsreaders used for replies in the "OT: Electric cars"
> thread "do the right thing":
>
> Xnews, KNode, Trn, Forte

Pan and whatever I've used previously. I've never heard of this "common
bug". And I've been USENETing since the early 80s or so. I've also
long used a string followed by a colon in the subject line in various
situations (ie. "Q:") and never perceived a problem.

>
> The following newsreader used for replies in that thread "do the wrong
> thing":
>
> MS Outlook Express
>
> Another MS blunder.

Ah. Dog Bites Man.

BTW, whats' wrong with displayed threading by threads instead of subject?
The latter can display messages in an invalid order (with "order" being
the partial ordering based upon the relationship reply->response); that
doesn't occur when "In-reply-to" or "References" are used.

- Andrew

[Jose]

> I've also long used a string followed
> by a colon in the subject line in various
> situations (ie. "Q:") and never perceived a problem.

The problem would be percieved by others.

> BTW, whats' wrong with displayed threading by threads instead of subject?

Nothing, but there's something wrong with having to. Sorting gets
screwed up in some readers when one must sort by threads if one is only
viewing unread messages.

Jose
--
There are two kinds of people in the world. Those that just want to
know what button to push, and those that want to know what happens when
they push the button.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Neil Gould]

Recently, Jim Logajan > posted:

> The following newsreaders used for replies in the "OT: Electric cars"
> thread "do the right thing":
>
> Xnews, KNode, Trn, Forte
>
> The following newsreader used for replies in that thread "do the wrong
> thing":
>
> MS Outlook Express
>
Interesting. How did you arrive at that?

> Another MS blunder.
>
Perhaps so. But not nearly the blunder that exists in "MSMail", the Vista
replacement for OE.

Neil

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

On Sun, 27 May 2007 23:19:46 GMT, "Neil Gould" > wrote in
>:

>Recently, Jim Logajan > posted:

>> The following newsreaders used for replies in the "OT: Electric cars"
>> thread "do the right thing":

>> Xnews, KNode, Trn, Forte

>> The following newsreader used for replies in that thread "do the wrong
>> thing":

>> MS Outlook Express

>Interesting. How did you arrive at that?

I'll bet he read the headers for the replies in the thread.

You sent your post with:

> X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1409

If you look in the headers for this post, you will probably
be able to find out what newsreader I'm using.

Marty
--
Big-8 newsgroups: humanities.*, misc.*, news.*, rec.*, sci.*, soc.*, talk.*
See http://www.big-8.org for info on how to add or remove newsgroups.

[Andrew Gideon]

On Sun, 27 May 2007 16:21:15 +0000, Jose wrote:

>> I've also long used a string followed by a colon in the subject line in
>> various situations (ie. "Q:") and never perceived a problem.
>
> The problem would be percieved by others.

It would be perceived by me if anyone had replied to such a message, if I
followed the "bug" explanation correctly. More, USENET being what it is,
someone would have complained about it in the years I've been doing this.


>
>> BTW, whats' wrong with displayed threading by threads instead of
>> subject?
>
> Nothing, but there's something wrong with having to.

Why? What's wrong with something being required to be done "the right
way" for that something to work properly?

> Sorting gets screwed
> up in some readers when one must sort by threads if one is only viewing
> unread messages.

How? I see no such artifact of "screwed up" sorting, and I've been
sorting by thread for quite a while.

- Andrew

[Jose]

> It would be perceived by me if anyone had replied to such a message, if I
> followed the "bug" explanation correctly.

Go back to the thread I referenced, view all messages, sort by subject
line. Do you see one set of messages without the OT(colon) prepend and
another set with, probably sorted in different places in the alphabet?

> More, USENET being what it is, someone would have complained
> about it in the years I've been doing this.

Ummmm... so?

> How? I see no such artifact of "screwed up" sorting, and I've been
> sorting by thread for quite a while.

Yanno, I don't have a problem with lines longer than 70 characters. My
newsreader wraps them for me. Why should I wrap my lines for other people?

Jose
--
There are two kinds of people in the world. Those that just want to
know what button to push, and those that want to know what happens when
they push the button.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Jim Logajan]

"Martin X. Moleski, SJ" > wrote:
> I'll bet he read the headers for the replies in the thread.

That is indeed what I did.

[Neil Gould]

Recently, Jim Logajan > posted:

> "Martin X. Moleski, SJ" > wrote:
>> I'll bet he read the headers for the replies in the thread.
>
> That is indeed what I did.
>
I was asking how you arrived at the conclusion that Outlook Express was
one of the apps that "did the wrong thing". As you can tell from the
headers, I'm using OE. Notice that I also modified the subject to include
a couple more colons, which, as you can see, were posted correctly. So...
how was it that you concluded that OE "did the wrong thing"?

Neil

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

On Mon, 28 May 2007 11:09:00 GMT, "Neil Gould" > wrote in
>:

>I was asking how you arrived at the conclusion that Outlook Express was
>one of the apps that "did the wrong thing". As you can tell from the
>headers, I'm using OE. Notice that I also modified the subject to include
>a couple more colons, which, as you can see, were posted correctly. So...
>how was it that you concluded that OE "did the wrong thing"?

The OE bug is generated by the first person using OE
to reply to a post that begins with "OT:" (or any other
combination of letters other than "Re:".

Once you have "Re:" in the subject line, OE ignores the
rest of the line.

The purpose of eliminating non-"Re" strings ending with a colon
at the beginning of a subject line is to get rid of foreign
language equivalents of "Re:". One "Re" at the beginning of
the line is sufficient.

The well-behaved newsreaders evidently check the first
component so that "OT:" remains intact. OE evidently trims
the first component without checking and substitutes "Re:"
for it.

This is an extremely difficult subject to search for, since
the words involved in the concept are so ordinary.

Here's an example of a discussion of the bug/feature:

<http://groups.google.com/group/alt.autos.toyota/browse_frm/thread/6bd5c4dbbd550a04/f6b23cfc83d72953?lnk=st&q=outlook+bug+usenet+subject&rnum=2#f6b23cfc83d72953>

http://tinyurl.com/ypdlpd

FWIW, you might want to make a mental note that Jim Logajan
has been around Usenet for a long time. He has undoubtedly
observed the strange splitting of threads in other groups,
as have I, and wondered why it happened. So have those
who are trying to write standards for Usenet news servers
and newsreaders:

http://www.landfield.com/usefor/2004/Mar/index.html

My favorite subject line on that page is "Re: Sv: RE: Ant: Sv: Antwort: Re:",
although the post itself is not as funny as the subject.
It does show the problem that Outlook's rule is trying to
avoid--the meaningless multiplication of things that
mean "Re".

Marty
--
Big-8 newsgroups: humanities.*, misc.*, news.*, rec.*, sci.*, soc.*, talk.*
See http://www.big-8.org for info on how to add or remove newsgroups.

[Don Tuite]

On Mon, 28 May 2007 09:36:29 -0400, "Martin X. Moleski, SJ"
> wrote:


>The purpose of eliminating non-"Re" strings ending with a colon
>at the beginning of a subject line is to get rid of foreign
>language equivalents of "Re:". One "Re" at the beginning of
>the line is sufficient.
>

Speaking of OT, Marty, maybe you could drop into rec.arts.books.

Last week someone posted a serious question about when canon law
addressed the issue of clergy carrying deadly weapons. Given the
breadth of your background, it occured to me that you'd have a handle
on that. No one else has responded to the question.

Don

[Jose]

> Notice that I also modified the subject to include
> a couple more colons, which, as you can see, were posted correctly.

That's not the bug. The bug (and I don't know if OE has it) is that
when a subject line is automatically processed, the automatic processing
strips incorrectly.

I am using Netscape 7.2. It does not have this bug. However, I am
noticing it has a different bug. Everything to the =right= of the
second colon has been stripped. Interesting.

Actually, that might even be the intended operation, since what was to
the right was the "(was..." and maybe the program is stripping that away
to complete the transition to the intended new subject line.

Curiouser and curiouser. I really wish the documentation would indicate
just =what= is supposed to happen.

Jose
--
There are two kinds of people in the world. Those that just want to
know what button to push, and those that want to know what happens when
they push the button.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Andrew Gideon]

On Mon, 28 May 2007 02:18:00 +0000, Jose wrote:

>> It would be perceived by me if anyone had replied to such a message, if
>> I followed the "bug" explanation correctly.
>
> Go back to the thread I referenced, view all messages, sort by subject
> line. Do you see one set of messages without the OT(colon) prepend and
> another set with, probably sorted in different places in the alphabet?

I expect so, but that's because sorting by thread and sorting by subject
are different operations. That they yield different results should be
no surprise.

This is one of those "doctor, it hurts when I do that", "don't do that"
type scenarios.

>> More, USENET being what it is, someone would have complained about it
>> in the years I've been doing this.
>
> Ummmm... so?

My point being that this "bug" doesn't seem "common". I'm not sure
whether this is because the subject lines are not being damaged improperly
or because few people sort by subject.

>
>> How? I see no such artifact of "screwed up" sorting, and I've been
>> sorting by thread for quite a while.
>
> Yanno, I don't have a problem with lines longer than 70 characters. My
> newsreader wraps them for me. Why should I wrap my lines for other
> people?

I don't know; why should you? And even if you do want to do your own
formatting, why 70 characters? It's not like we're using terminals any
longer.

I think you're trying to build some type of comparison, but you're
comparing a relatively obscure bug with something that was actually an
issue Once Upon a Time. I'm not sure what point can be discerned from
this, so I'm afraid you'll need to be more explicit.

- Andrew

[Jose]

> I expect so, but that's because sorting by thread and sorting by subject
> are different operations. That they yield different results should be
> no surprise.

When I didn't know better, I thought that threads were defined by the
subject line. There are advantages to sorting by subject line, and some
readers do not sort by threads unless set to "read all". Including
plonked posts.

> My point being that this "bug" doesn't seem "common".

Actually, it is.

>> Yanno, I don't have a problem with lines longer than 70 characters. My
>> newsreader wraps them for me. Why should I wrap my lines for other
>> people?
> I don't know; why should you?

Courtesy to those who need that wrap. It's a small thing, but a nice
thing to do.

(Actually, since hard returns are a problem for wrapping readers I'm on
the fence about this one, but I've been asked to wrap so I wrap.)

It's easy to avoid using the colon in subject line prepends. Doing so
makes a better experience for some others. But this is Usenet. Do what
you want. At least now we know what the consequences of the colon are.
I didn't before, and wondered why things got split.

Jose
--
There are two kinds of people in the world. Those that just want to
know what button to push, and those that want to know what happens when
they push the button.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Neil Gould]

Recently, Martin X. Moleski, SJ > posted:

> On Mon, 28 May 2007 11:09:00 GMT, "Neil Gould"
> > wrote in
> >:
>
>> I was asking how you arrived at the conclusion that Outlook Express
>> was one of the apps that "did the wrong thing". As you can tell from
>> the headers, I'm using OE. Notice that I also modified the subject
>> to include a couple more colons, which, as you can see, were posted
>> correctly. So... how was it that you concluded that OE "did the
>> wrong thing"?
>
> The OE bug is generated by the first person using OE
> to reply to a post that begins with "OT:" (or any other
> combination of letters other than "Re:".
>
> Once you have "Re:" in the subject line, OE ignores the
> rest of the line.
>
Ah. I see. Thanks for the clarification, Martin.

Neil

[Neil Gould]

Recently, Jose > posted:

>> Notice that I also modified the subject to include
>> a couple more colons, which, as you can see, were posted correctly.
>
> That's not the bug. The bug (and I don't know if OE has it) is that
> when a subject line is automatically processed, the automatic
> processing strips incorrectly.
>
> I am using Netscape 7.2. It does not have this bug. However, I am
> noticing it has a different bug. Everything to the =right= of the
> second colon has been stripped. Interesting.
>
> Actually, that might even be the intended operation, since what was to
> the right was the "(was..." and maybe the program is stripping that
> away to complete the transition to the intended new subject line.
>
> Curiouser and curiouser. I really wish the documentation would
> indicate just =what= is supposed to happen.
>
That *is* interesting.

I don't know that I'd call these "bugs", if they are working as originally
intended. Perhaps the reasons for executing these actions don't match the
expectations of the user, but that is a somewhat different matter.

Neil

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

On Mon, 28 May 2007 11:51:32 -0500, "Neil Gould" > wrote in
>:

>Recently, Jose > posted:

>>> Notice that I also modified the subject to include
>>> a couple more colons, which, as you can see, were posted correctly.

>> That's not the bug. The bug (and I don't know if OE has it) is that
>> when a subject line is automatically processed, the automatic
>> processing strips incorrectly.

>> I am using Netscape 7.2. It does not have this bug. However, I am
>> noticing it has a different bug. Everything to the =right= of the
>> second colon has been stripped. Interesting.

>> Actually, that might even be the intended operation, since what was to
>> the right was the "(was..." and maybe the program is stripping that
>> away to complete the transition to the intended new subject line.

>> Curiouser and curiouser. I really wish the documentation would
>> indicate just =what= is supposed to happen.

>That *is* interesting.

>I don't know that I'd call these "bugs", if they are working as originally
>intended. Perhaps the reasons for executing these actions don't match the
>expectations of the user, but that is a somewhat different matter.

The moral of the story is not to use colons as punctuation
in a subject line IF you care about what happens to it later
as it passes through the hands of various and sundry
newsreaders.

Google was also swallowing up square brackets last time I checked
(five or six months ago), so tags like [OT], [META], [FA], etc.,
don't show up in the archive the way they did on first reading
from my NSP.

I'm not saying anyone has to care ...

Marty
--
Big-8 newsgroups: humanities.*, misc.*, news.*, rec.*, sci.*, soc.*, talk.*
See http://www.big-8.org for info on how to add or remove newsgroups.

[Andrew Gideon]

On Mon, 28 May 2007 15:11:37 +0000, Jose wrote:

>> I expect so, but that's because sorting by thread and sorting by subject
>> are different operations. That they yield different results should be
>> no surprise.
>
> When I didn't know better, I thought that threads were defined by the
> subject line.

Fair enough.

> There are advantages to sorting by subject line,

Perhaps this is the problem; I'm not aware of these advantages. What are
they?

> and some
> readers do not sort by threads unless set to "read all". Including
> plonked posts.

I'm not aware of readers with this behavior. How is this manifested?
That is, what happens if one is not reading all and one sorts by thread?

- Andrew

[Jose]

> Perhaps this is the problem; I'm not aware of
> these advantages. What are they? [...]

When a subject line is changed, it is a good indication that the
conversation has changed. (the converse is of course not true).
Perhaps it's a bug (or feature) in my reader (Netscape 7.2) that when
sorting by threads, the sort list can't be alphabetized. In fact, I
can't figure out in what order they are presented (it could be, for
example, the order of the date of the latest post, the earliest post,
the earliest retained post...) My reader saves (on my hard drive) the
last x days worth of posts so that I can go back, even to plonked posts
(which I merely mark as read) without connecting to the net again.

Sometimes people reply (physically) to a post as a convenience, while
replying (semantically) to a different post, or combine replies to
several posts into one (I like when people do that intellegently).

Maybe my sort-by-thread is just buggy. But I doubt I'm the only one
with buggy software. :)

> That is, what happens if one is not reading all and one sorts by thread?

On my reader, you can sort by thread, but you can't pick the order. You
can't collapse threads unless you are viewing all. Of course, viewing
by subject you can't collapse threads either.

Also, sometimes things just "get funky". I can't explain it because I
haven't done it enough - I just go back to reading by subject.

Jose
--
There are two kinds of people in the world. Those that just want to
know what button to push, and those that want to know what happens when
they push the button.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Andrew Gideon]

On Mon, 28 May 2007 21:29:37 -0400, Jose wrote:

> When a subject line is changed, it is a good indication that the
> conversation has changed. (the converse is of course not true). Perhaps
> it's a bug (or feature) in my reader (Netscape 7.2) that when sorting by
> threads, the sort list can't be alphabetized.

My newsreader doesn't "sort" by thread. It will "group" by thread. This
does act a lot like sorting, in that the messages w/in a thread are
displayed in an order consistent with their relationships (ie. a reply to
A will follow A). But it doesn't sort over multiple threads as those
messages not in a same thread have no relation on which an ordering
decision can be made.

So there's some other sort criteria for that (date, subject, received
date, etc.) that used for this purpose.

Netscape does it differently?

[...]

>
> Maybe my sort-by-thread is just buggy. But I doubt I'm the only one
> with buggy software. :)

The Internet isn't bug-free yet?

From what you're describing, it sounds like Netscape's news reading
capability is broken in several different ways. Why not simply use
something else? There are plenty of alternatives; it seems silly to
settle, even if it is a small thing (ie. not an important issue, like
high-wing vs. low-wing {8^).

- Andrew

[Jose]

> But it doesn't sort over multiple threads as those
> messages not in a same thread have no relation on which an ordering
> decision can be made.

Netscape 7.2 (which I use) cannot sort threads by subject line. (by
this I don't mean messages within a thread, which should be in thread
order, but rather, the group of threads themselves)

Of course, since threads are not defined by subject line, this is
understandable, nonetheless, threads are usually closely correlated with
subject line, and when I remember a thread I want to look at (or avoid),
it is usually by subject line.

=Messages= can be sorted by subject line, but then the OT colon bug
shows up.

> The Internet isn't bug-free yet?

It was bug free the day before it was born. :)

> From what you're describing, it sounds like Netscape's news reading
> capability is broken in several different ways.

No, actually it is probably working as designed, since threads are not
defined by subject line. That is, subject lines can change within a
thread, so which subject line should be used?

> Why not simply use
> something else?

I could, I suppose, but that's not the point. My point is that I have
(re)discovered an (admittedly small but vexing) adverse consequence of
people using a colon after a prepend. With this knowledge, those that
care about this adverse consequence to others may wish to avoid
following prepends with a colon.

That is all.

Jose
--
There are two kinds of people in the world. Those that just want to
know what button to push, and those that want to know what happens when
they push the button.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Andrew Gideon]

On Tue, 29 May 2007 15:18:36 -0400, Jose wrote:

>> But it doesn't sort over multiple threads as those messages not in a
>> same thread have no relation on which an ordering decision can be made.
>
> Netscape 7.2 (which I use) cannot sort threads by subject line. (by this
> I don't mean messages within a thread, which should be in thread order,
> but rather, the group of threads themselves)
>
> Of course, since threads are not defined by subject line, this is
> understandable,

If I understand what you've written, I disagree: it is clearly a bug and
not "understandable". As you point out, messages w/in a thread should be
in an order consistent with thread ordering. But the relative ordering of
threads themselves is - obviously - independent of threading. One should
be able to order threads however one wants (subject, date, etc.).

Not being able to do this isn't understandable (except as a "whoops!" {8^).

- Andrew

[Jose]

> If I understand what you've written, I disagree: it is clearly a bug and
> not "understandable". As you point out, messages w/in a thread should be
> in an order consistent with thread ordering. But the relative ordering of
> threads themselves is - obviously - independent of threading. One should
> be able to order threads however one wants (subject, date, etc.).

Suppose you start a thread called
OT: bugs in aviation.
The response to the first message comes from a "good" reader, and has
the subject
Re: OT: bugs in aviation.
The response to that response is from a "bad" reader, and has the subject
Re: OT: bugs in aviation.
Somebody else, with a "bad" reader, responds to the first message. His
subject line is
Re: bugs in aviation.
Somebody with a "good" reader replies to that message. The subject is
Re: bugs in aviation.
Someone with a good reader replies to the first message, and overrules
the subject line. His subject line is:
GPS bugs (was OT: bugs in aviation)
Someone with a good reader replies to this message. The subject is:
Re: GPS bugs (was OT: bugs in aviation)
Someone with a very bad reader replies to the "overrule" message. The
subject line is:
re: bugs in aviation)
(everything in front of the colon was replaced with "re")
etc.

On Monday the first of Augtober, I read the first message in the thread.
By Tuesday, the rest of the messages have come in.
On Wednesday, I sign on again. I want to see a list of THREADS,
alphabetized by SUBJECT LINE. (I don't want to see a list of all
messages, just all threads, and the number of messages in each thread)

So, how should these messages be sorted?

Jose
--
There are two kinds of people in the world. Those that just want to
know what button to push, and those that want to know what happens when
they push the button.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Andrew Gideon]

On Tue, 29 May 2007 21:32:30 -0400, Jose wrote:

> On Monday the first of Augtober, I read the first message in the thread.
> By Tuesday, the rest of the messages have come in. On Wednesday, I sign on
> again. I want to see a list of THREADS, alphabetized by SUBJECT LINE. (I
> don't want to see a list of all messages, just all threads, and the number
> of messages in each thread)
>
> So, how should these messages be sorted?

If your reader is like mine, it lists threads (as opposed to messages) by
"collapsing" the listing. So you'll see the "top" message for each tree
of replies.

These top messages will be sorted by subject.

No message that is a reply to any other [unread] message will be visible
in this listing because it is collapsed. If you "open" a thread, those
replies will become visible (and nested or somehow flagged as being
internal to the given thread's tree).

Hmm. You may see the replies to the first [read] message separately. The
reader knows that they're connected, but it doesn't have any way to
graphically display this (because read messages are invisible). That is,
there's no way to display the fact that two replies to the same [read]
message are in the same thread because there's no visible construct under
which both messages can be placed.

Is that the problem you're describing?

If so, all you need is a reader that actually displays thread tops
rather than the top message in the thread.

My reader (pan) doesn't do this. I'd never noticed this before. But if
I want to force a thread to maintain its tree structure over time, I do
need to change the filtering to display read messages too.

Trying this, I don't particularly like it even though I still have
"next unread" (and now I know why that exists {8^) and it clearly
indicates which are read, unread, and new. It just uses too much "space"
in the expanded view. But this is how one would need to see an entire
thread.

I think displaying a separate artifact on the list for "thread top" would
work too, though.

- Andrew

[Andrew Gideon]

On Wed, 30 May 2007 10:12:19 -0400, Andrew Gideon wrote:

> Trying this, I don't particularly like it even though I still have "next
> unread" (and now I know why that exists {8^) and it clearly indicates
> which are read, unread, and new. It just uses too much "space" in the
> expanded view. But this is how one would need to see an entire thread.

Umm...I've tried using this for a bit, and now I'm not so sure. I rather
like being "in a thread" rather than reading messages. And pan offers
keyboard shortcuts for expand/collapse thread etc. which are suddenly
useful.

Only threads with unread messages are appearing. So my message list is
actually looking less cluttered than before, even though when I expand a
thread I see all the unread messages listed.

Let's see what happens when I come upon some really large threads (which
is bound to happen here sooner or later {8^).

- Andrew

[Jose]

> If your reader is like mine, it lists threads (as opposed to messages) by
> "collapsing" the listing. So you'll see the "top" message for each tree
> of replies.

Exactly.

> Hmm. You may see the replies to the first [read] message separately.

Exactly. So now I have three trees under:

bugs in...
GPS bugs...
OT...

where ideally there'd just be one listing, under
OT...
where all the other OT posts, threads, or trees would be sorted

> That is,
> there's no way to display the fact that two replies to the same [read]
> message are in the same thread because there's no visible construct under
> which both messages can be placed.
>
> Is that the problem you're describing?

Yes, that is one aspect of it.

> If so, all you need is a reader that actually displays thread tops
> rather than the top message in the thread.

What if the thread top is six months old?

> My reader (pan) doesn't do this. I'd never noticed this before.

Go back and see if, for an OT thread with the colon (for example, the
one about Electric cars), you see separate trees, one that starts with
OT and another that starts with Electric.

> Trying [show read messages too], I don't particularly like it

Neither do I. It's clumsier than simply putting up with the defeat of
the OT prepend.

> Umm...I've tried using this [same thing] for a bit, and now I'm not so sure.
> I rather like being "in a thread" rather than reading messages.

Yes, that part is nice. But sorting trees by subject line is
problematic, and that's how I'd like to sort them.

Jose
--
There are two kinds of people in the world. Those that just want to
know what button to push, and those that want to know what happens when
they push the button.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Neil Gould]

Recently, Jose > posted:
>
> [...] But sorting trees by subject line is
> problematic, and that's how I'd like to sort them.
>
OE sorts trees by subject line, but if the subject line changes, you get a
new tree root if read files are hidden.

I really don't see a way to resolve all of the possible ways that readers
deal with thread headers into a universally consistent practice. Someone
will always come up with an app that does something wacky.

Neil

[Jose]

> OE sorts trees by subject line, but if the subject line changes, you get a
> new tree root if read files are hidden.

Right. This is what happens with Netscape too.

> I really don't see a way to resolve all of the possible ways that readers
> deal with thread headers into a universally consistent practice. Someone
> will always come up with an app that does something wacky.

Right. But if posters avoid following a prepend with a colon, this
issue won't be an issue.

Jose
--
There are two kinds of people in the world. Those that just want to
know what button to push, and those that want to know what happens when
they push the button.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Neil Gould]

Recently, Jose > posted:

>> I really don't see a way to resolve all of the possible ways that
>> readers deal with thread headers into a universally consistent
>> practice. Someone will always come up with an app that does
>> something wacky.
>
> Right. But if posters avoid following a prepend with a colon, this
> issue won't be an issue.
>
What of those readers that truncate long lines or as in your app's case
oddly truncate subject lines that have mulitple "OT:" in them? I'd think
that the multiple tree roots would be the more desirable consequence.

Neil

[Jose]

> What of those readers that truncate long lines or as in your app's case
> oddly truncate subject lines that have mulitple "OT:" in them? I'd think
> that the multiple tree roots would be the more desirable consequence.

Those wouldn't be issues either.

Truncating: Avoiding the colon doesn't lengthen the line (except for the
first re:). It merely keeps the original OT in the subject line. It
ensures that "OT" is not treated special.

My app doesn't "oddly trucnate subject lines". Other apps do when they
reply. Then =everybody's= app (including mine) gets multple subject
lines, defeating the point of a prepend. Check out prior threads which
started with OT and a colon, or watch the "OT: Eagle, not waddling"
thread develop and you'll see a new subject line appear without the OT
as soon as somebody replies to it with a "bad" reader.

I don't understand when multple tree roots would be better.

Jose
--
There are two kinds of people in the world. Those that just want to
know what button to push, and those that want to know what happens when
they push the button.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Neil Gould]

Recently, Jose > posted:

>> What of those readers that truncate long lines or as in your app's
>> case oddly truncate subject lines that have mulitple "OT:" in them?
>> I'd think that the multiple tree roots would be the more desirable
>> consequence.
>
> Those wouldn't be issues either.
>
> Truncating: Avoiding the colon doesn't lengthen the line (except for
> the first re:). It merely keeps the original OT in the subject line.
> It ensures that "OT" is not treated special.
>
Truncated long lines and oddly truncated lines are not part of the same
behavior. I was referring to the larger issue of making subject lines
compatible with all readers and under all configurations.

> My app doesn't "oddly trucnate subject lines".
>
I was referring to your reply to my post where I added an extra "OT:
(was..." and your reader posted only "Re: OT - OT:" If your app didn't do
that, then you did for some reason that really escapes me. ;-)

> I don't understand when multple tree roots would be better.
>
In the above example, a new subject line without any reference to the
topic was created, yet your reply appeared in the thread tree and below
the post to which you responded. IOW, the context was preserved even
though the subject had changed.

If the subject line contains the proper reference to the topic (e.g. two
thread tree roots with "Electric Car" in the subject line), then it is not
a big problem to follow the thread. Also, at least with OE multiple tree
roots only appear if one is hiding read messages regardless of the subject
line, so I see it as a consequence of the convenience of hiding read
messages rather than a bug in the way the reader works.

Neil

[Jose]

> I was referring to the larger issue of making subject lines
> compatible with all readers and under all configurations.

Of course that's impossible. Someone will program a bigger bug. But if
there is a known and common issue (the re: bug), and an easy fix, (avoid
colonized prepends), it's probably worth spreading and doing. Alas,
working around software will always be an issue.

> I was referring to your reply to my post where I added an extra "OT:
> (was..." and your reader posted only "Re: OT - OT:" If your app didn't do
> that, then you did for some reason that really escapes me. ;-)

Hmmm. I noticed that; I didn't notice that =my= app did it. Trying it
again... hmmm.. curiouser and curiouser. That's a bizzare one! I
guess my app =does= sometimes "oddly truncate subject lines". What does
=your= app do as a reply to your multicolon message (subject line below)?

Re: OT - OT: (was: the OT tag and the Re bug.)

> In the above example, a new subject line without any reference to the
> topic was created, yet your reply appeared in the thread tree and below
> the post to which you responded. IOW, the context was preserved even
> though the subject had changed.

That it remained in the same tree is true even of the ordinary re:bug
posts, which are far more common. But when sorted by subject line, the
ordinary re: bug posts sort =outside= of the OT slot in the alphabet
(unless the base subject line starts with ot, like "Other pix"). My
bizzare bug preserved the prepend, so it still sorted under OT, where it
belongs.

> If the subject line contains the proper reference to the topic (e.g. two
> thread tree roots with "Electric Car" in the subject line), then it is not
> a big problem to follow the thread.

No. The (minor) problem is for those who wish to screen OT posts which
have been duly labeled for this purpose with the prepend. As soon as
somebody responds with a "bad" reader, a stealth subject is created
which bypasses their "OT" filter. So, sooner or later, the OT prepend
is defeated. This would be true of other prepends too.

> Also, at least with OE multiple tree
> roots only appear if one is hiding read messages regardless of the subject
> line, so I see it as a consequence of the convenience of hiding read
> messages rather than a bug in the way the reader works.

Not hiding read messages is more inconvenient than seeing stealth
subject lines. At least for me.

Is there really a downside to avoiding a colon after a prepend?

Jose
--
There are two kinds of people in the world. Those that just want to
know what button to push, and those that want to know what happens when
they push the button.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Neil Gould]

Recently, Jose > posted:

>> I was referring to your reply to my post where I added an extra "OT:
>> (was..." and your reader posted only "Re: OT - OT:" If your app
>> didn't do that, then you did for some reason that really escapes me.
>> ;-)
>
> Hmmm. I noticed that; I didn't notice that =my= app did it. Trying
> it again... hmmm.. curiouser and curiouser. That's a bizzare one! I
> guess my app =does= sometimes "oddly truncate subject lines". What
> does =your= app do as a reply to your multicolon message (subject
> line below)?
>
> Re: OT - OT: (was: the OT tag and the Re bug.)
>
My app (OE) retains the full line as submitted. Other examples in the
original thread suggest that OE may not be the only app that handles this
situation correctly.

> Is there really a downside to avoiding a colon after a prepend?
>
I wouldn't say there is a downside, but who knows if that solves the
problem for all readers, or that some other reader anomalies won't create
the same kind of "problem" with other subject line content?

Neil

[Jose]

> I wouldn't say there is a downside,

Then let's try it. :)

> but who knows if that solves the
> problem for all readers, or that some other reader anomalies won't create
> the same kind of "problem" with other subject line content?

Nobody, until we try it. Colon cleansing for prepends!

Jose
--
There are two kinds of people in the world. Those that just want to
know what button to push, and those that want to know what happens when
they push the button.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

On Thu, 31 May 2007 11:25:34 -0400, Jose > wrote in >:

> ... What does
>=your= app do as a reply to your multicolon message (subject line below)?

>Re: OT - OT: (was: the OT tag and the Re bug.)

Neil is using Outlook Express (OE).

Once he replies to a post that has "Re:" in it,
OE does nothing odd to the line.

Dudley also uses OE. You'll notice that when he
replied to the very first post about the eagle,
the "OT:" was replaced by "Re:". That is the
OE method of handling prepends with a colon.

> ... Is there really a downside to avoiding a colon after a prepend?

I don't see a downside.

But everybody types according to their own taste.
The odds of getting everyone in r.a.p to generate
OE-safe subject lines and slim and none. ;o)

Marty
--
Big-8 newsgroups: humanities.*, misc.*, news.*, rec.*, sci.*, soc.*, talk.*
See http://www.big-8.org for info on how to add or remove newsgroups.

[Jose]

> But everybody types according to their own taste.
> The odds of getting everyone in r.a.p to generate
> OE-safe subject lines and slim and none. ;o)

"This is my quest.... to follow that star, no matter how hopeless, no
matter how far!"

Besides, if it saves just =one= child....

Jose (onward Colon Crusade!)
--
There are two kinds of people in the world. Those that just want to
know what button to push, and those that want to know what happens when
they push the button.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Neil Gould]

Recently, Martin X. Moleski, SJ > posted:

> On Thu, 31 May 2007 11:25:34 -0400, Jose >
asked:
>
>> ... Is there really a downside to avoiding a colon after a prepend?
>
> I don't see a downside.
>
> But everybody types according to their own taste.
> The odds of getting everyone in r.a.p to generate
> OE-safe subject lines and slim and none. ;o)
>
I suspect that Jose's interest has little to do with OE-safe subject
lines, as he is using some other newsreader. What's more, I don't have a
problem with how the subject lines appear in OE, so AFAIC, they are
already "safe". ;-)

I do agree that the chances of everyone in r.a.p. (or anywhere else on
usenet) generating subject lines that satisfy every newsreader's quirks
are between slim and none. ;-)

Neil

[Jose]

> I suspect that Jose's interest has little to do with OE-safe subject
> lines, as he is using some other newsreader.

Well, the thing is, OE-unsafe subject lines affect message and thread
appearance in all readers by affecting the underlying data.

Just remember, colons are unfit subjects. :)

Jose
--
There are two kinds of people in the world. Those that just want to
know what button to push, and those that want to know what happens when
they push the button.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.