E-Mail/Post Threading (was: Bonferroni p-value greater t

On Thu, 2007-03-29 at 19:38 +0100, ted.harding at nessie.mcc.ac.uk wrote:

On 29-Mar-07 17:15:27, Marc Schwartz wrote:

[...]
Just a quick heads up here, that deleting the body text of
a message or changing the subject line, does not alter the
'linkage' between posts.

There are standards for how messages are 'threaded' and largely
have to do with the e-mail headers, not the e-mail content.

A couple of quick references that might be helpful:

http://people.dsv.su.se/~jpalme/ietf/message-threading.html

http://www.jwz.org/doc/threading.html

This above, of course, is a good reason for not replying to an
existing message when you want to start a completely new thread.

However, I'm wondering what is the best way to start a new thread
which legitimately branches out from an existing one.

For example, someone posts a message which discusses at length a
method of isotonic binary regression, and in the middle of this
describes a curious approach to obtaining confidence bands for
the regression. I'm intrigued by the confidence band issue, get
some ideas about it, and want to start a new thread to develop
just this aspect.

However, to do so I want in the first place to include several
quotations from the original message. This, of course, is most
easily done by replying to that message -- so that it gets included
in the reply -- and editing this included message, and changing
the subject.

But that stays in the old thread, which I don't want. Now of course
one can copy over the old text into a brand new blank message,
and edit it up into a simulacrum of a "reply" -- all the usual
"On NN March 2007, XXX wrote:" ... as well as the "> " inclusion
markers, etc.. But that could be tedious. Nevertheless, perhaps
it is the right thing to do -- unless there's a work-round using
the "reply" mechanism?

Best wishes to all,
Ted.

Hi Ted,

The general approach, if "relatedly digressing" (also described
in various 'netiquette' guides) is to do what I did here, which
is reply to the post in question, but change the subject header
by using "New Subject (was: Old Subject)".

This enables you to easily engage in the sort of editing that you
describe, and still links your reply back to the original thread,
under the presumption that your reply is in some way related to
the subject matter of the original thread.

Since most e-mail systems (list managers, MUA's, etc.) thread
based upon the headers and not the subject, as described in the
above references, unless you generate a completely new e-mail,
your reply will be linked to the e-mail and thread to which you
are replying.

It's pretty much a dichotomous situation.  Use 'reply' and you get
linked to the old thread. Use a 'new' e-mail and you start a new
thread.

If you are truly moving in a new direction, I would be tempted to
start a new thread and perhaps to make it easier for readers,
include a reference/link to the post in question. That way, you
keep your new e-mail in a separate thread, while 'virtually'
linking it back to the original that raised your interest.

HTH,

Marc