Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Tired of bogus subject lines?
Message-ID: <2454@auspex.auspex.com>
Date: 15 Sep 89 22:26:33 GMT
References: <1650@unocss.UUCP> <112@blekko.UUCP> <6120@ficc.uu.net>
Reply-To: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 39

>The right way to follow threads is the references line. If you really want
>to do a good deed get people to fix the software that breaks *that*.

You mean like the software that gateways some newsgroups
bi-directionally to and from Internet mailing lists, and the
mail-reading software on the systems on which people read those mailing
lists?  Make 'em all generate References: lines, or else?

Would everybody who advocates not using the subject lines to link
threads please either:

	1) come up with a way to make your favorite thread-linking
	   mechanism work on gatewayed groups such as
	   "comp.unix.wizards";

	2) come up with a way to convince people that gatewaying groups
	   like that is a Bad Thing because of the lack of "References:"
	   lines or some other thread-linking mechanism, and therefore
	   should be ceased (when I say "people", I mean people in a
	   position to do something about it, and people who are
	   currently reading those groups as mailing lists - please
	   don't waste your time or mine trying to convince *me*, as I'm
	   not in any position to do anything about it, and since I
	   don't read them as mailing lists I don't think I have the
	   right to say to those who do "you don't deserve to be able to
	   read them in this fashion");

or

	3) cease telling us all what a Bad Thing it is to use the
	   Subject: line to link threads, because in some cases of
	   messages arriving from Internet mailing lists it's all you
	   have.  Hindsight is 20/20; if you want to draw the lesson
	   from all this that "netnews should have been set up so that
	   References: lines *always* worked, even if that meant not
	   gatewaying from mailing lists", feel free (but be prepared to
	   get toasted by those who find such gatewaying useful), but
	   don't draw the lesson that there's anything you can do about
	   it on USENET as it currently exists.