Errors-to: owner-drums@CS.UTK.EDU
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 1995 11:29:39 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Jacob Palme <jpalme@dsv.su.se>
To: Jim Conklin <conklin@info.cren.net>
Cc: ietf-drums <drums@CS.UTK.EDU>
Subject: Re: Does "References:" form threads?
In-Reply-To: <199508161739.NAA25024@info.cren.net>
Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950817112431.27446J-100000@ester>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

> At  6:25 PM 8/16/95 +0200, Jacob Palme wrote:

> >One possibillity would be to define this difference in e-mail in
> >a way which is equivalent to current practice in Usenet News,
> >i.e. to say that "In-Reply-To" is recommended for personally
> >addressed replies and "References" for group replies.

On Wed, 16 Aug 1995, Jim Conklin wrote:
> 
>   I don't have a philosophical problem with this, but I don't believe that
> we'll ever succeed in getting that distinction used by the
> non-computer-professional unless we can figure out some way to have the MUA
> make the distinction.

Many message systems work in either of the following two ways:

(a) They have two different commands for sending replies only to the
    author or to all recipients of the replied-to message.

(b) They ask a qestion who gives the "reply" command a question
    "Reply to all recipients?" and if the user answers yes,
    the reply is sent to all recipients (including the list, if
    one of them was a list) otherwise the reply is sent only
    to the author or the "Reply-To" address.

(Of course the writer of the reply always can override these defaults.)

If message systems ask that question or have two different commands,
then the message system can easily, depending on the answer to this
command, generate either an "In-Reply-To" or a "References" link to
the replied-to message.

(Many newsreaders already work in this way.)

This would not cause any extra complication for the users, since
they anyway have to answer that question or choose between those
two commands.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jacob Palme <jpalme@dsv.su.se> (Stockholm University and KTH)
for more info see URL: http://www.dsv.su.se/~jpalme