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 ("...") the software also senses a
pre-existing "" 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.