Re: [tlug] ThreadHijacking/Sorry(RedFace)

[Jonathan Byrne <jq@example.com>]

On Sun, Feb 22, 2004 at 11:26:04AM +0900, Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon wrote:

>Uuuuu.... good thing there isn't a camera beaming my face to you now - 
>it is beet-red!  I (stupidly) thought it was simply an issue of what was 
>in the Subject heading.

That is it precisely.  When you change the subject of an existing thread
and go off on a new topic, that is thread hijacking.

Now, threads have a natural tendency to morph if they continue for a
long while, and when a thread has morphed enough that the current
content of the thread has changed sufficiently that it could be judged
OT to the original content and Subject, then someone - anyone - can and
should start a new thread with a new subject.  At that point you may, if
it would help with clarity, make a Subject something like this:

Subject: New Topic (WAS: Old topic)

That makes it easy for people to grasp it is a new thread picking up
where the old one left off.

Now, it is possible to reply and not thread hijack if you have a mail client
such as mutt, which gives you easy access to all of the headers, including the
In-Reply-To header, which is what better mail clients use for threading.
Those better mail clients (such as mutt) allow you to easily remove the 
In-Reply-To header, which along with changing the subject creates a brand new
thread.

Of course, since most authors of mail software seem to believe that you
shouldn't have ready access to anything besides From, To, Reply-To (and
even that is not readily accessible in some software, I'm sure), Cc, Bcc,
and Subject, in practice it's easier to start a new thread with a blank
mail than it is to transmogrify an old thread into a new one.

>what's what with computers, but I thought I knew more about e-mail.....  

FWIW, you're not alone.  I think those who are clueless about email Netiquette
today vastly outnumber those who are not.  But you have set your feet upon the
path to cluefulness today.  More importantly, you have demonstrated the most
fundamental characteristic of a true Unix User (well, besides being a BOFH,
anyway ;-) :  someone told you that you messed up and how to avoid messing
up in the future, and you learned from it and committed yourself to doing
that.  Compare that to the reactions of some (failed) would-be Linux users
who come from the world of the clueless Windows user and rather than trying
to learn and become clued, pretty much expect us, our culture,  and probably our
very operating system to instead shed clue until we have reached their level.
This, of course, we refuse to do.

So congratulations, you've stepped across the threshhold of clue, gotten
your slapdown baptism, learned from it, and are still using Linux.  The
rest will be easy :-)

Jonathan
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