Re: How threading works (was Re: Root Cause Re: 202401102221.AYC Re: Streamline The CG-NAT Re: 202401100645.AYC Re: IPv4 address block)

[Tom Beecher <beecher () beecher cc>]

> Gmail is therefore in violation of the RFC5822.  It's quite clear how it
> should work per the RFC appendix.

Well, no. Asterisks added for emphasis.

 This specification is intended as a definition of what message
>    content format is to be passed between systems.  Though some message
>    systems locally store messages in this format (which eliminates the
>    need for translation between formats) and others use formats that
>    differ from the one specified in this specification, local storage is
>    outside of the scope of this specification.
>
>       Note: This specification is not intended to dictate the internal
>       formats used by sites, the specific message system features that
>       they are expected to support, *** or any of the characteristics of
>       user interface programs that create or read messages. ***  In
>       addition, this document does not specify an encoding of the
>       characters for either transport or storage; that is, it does not
>       specify the number of bits used or how those bits are specifically
>       transferred over the wire or stored on disk.
>
> 5822 defines the structure and syntax of the data. Not how mail agents
should work with it.



On Sun, Jan 14, 2024 at 3:55 AM Bryan Fields <Bryan () bryanfields net> wrote:

> On 1/14/24 1:01 AM, William Herrin wrote:
> > Respectfully, your MUA is not the only MUA. Others work differently.
>
> Bill, I use multiple MUA's, among them Thunderbird, mutt, kmail and even
> the
> zimbra web interface.  All follow and implement RFC5822 as it pertains to
> threading.
>
> Note, threading works fine in the list archives too, but only displays two
> levels deep.
>
> > GMail, for example, follows the message IDs as you say but assumes
> > that if you change the subject line in your reply (more than adding
> > "Re:") then you intend to start a new thread from that point in the
> > discussion. It groups messages accordingly.
>
> Gmail is therefore in violation of the RFC5822.  It's quite clear how it
> should work per the RFC appendix.
>
> > This is not an unreasonable expectation: if you merely want to
> > continue the current conversation without going off on a new tangent
> > then there's no need for a different subject line.
>
> I think it's quite unreasonable to expect others to compensate for an MUA
> which doesn't implement 25+ year old standards properly.
> --
> Bryan Fields
>
> 727-409-1194 - Voice
> http://bryanfields.net