Grouping problem (thread hierarchy screwed up by OE6)

Outlook Express 6
Windows XP Pro SP-2

In one thread, I thought that a poster has mistakeningly submitted their
post as a reply to my post (which was a also a reply). Their reply showed
up indented and underneath my post. However, after looking at Google Groups
and also checking the chaining in the References header in each post, the
other person did not reply to me but to the original post (mine was a reply,
not the original post). What should've been:

originalpost
myreplypost
theirreplypost

instead looked like:

originalpost
myreplypost
theirreplypost

I and the other respondent were neither the original poster. Looking at the
Message-ID and References header in each post:

Original post
Message-ID: . com

My reply to the original post
Message-ID:
References: . com

Their reply
Message-ID:
References: . com
My Message-ID is not included in your References header. Just the
Message-ID for the original post.

My reply to your post
Message-ID:
References: . com

Your Message-ID gets chained in References.

Their reply to my post
Message-ID:
References: . com


The References chain still looks good.

For some reason, your post looked like it was a reply to mine although the
References header shows that is should not. I also noticed that the
original post is missing from the original server which I used for my first
reply and the second server I used to see your reply (and make my second
reply). Both AIOE and Teranews are missing the original post, so I suspect
OE is using the Subject header to group the message - but it should not.

Time to review alternate NNTP clients again. Thanks for responding because
it helped me find that OE doesn't correctly group the threads. It's
peculiar because this is the first one that I've seen where OE doesn't group
properly by the References header.


--
__________________________________________________
Post replies to the newsgroup. Share with others.
For e-mail: Remove "NIX" and add "#VN" to Subject.
__________________________________________________

"Vanguard" wrote in message
...
Outlook Express 6
Windows XP Pro SP-2

In one thread, I thought that a poster has mistakeningly submitted their
post as a reply to my post (which was a also a reply). Their reply showed
up indented and underneath my post. However, after looking at Google
Groups
and also checking the chaining in the References header in each post, the
other person did not reply to me but to the original post (mine was a
reply,
not the original post). What should've been:

originalpost
myreplypost
theirreplypost

instead looked like:

originalpost
myreplypost
theirreplypost

I and the other respondent were neither the original poster. Looking at
the
Message-ID and References header in each post:

Original post
Message-ID: . com

My reply to the original post
Message-ID:
References: . com

Their reply
Message-ID:
References: . com
My Message-ID is not included in your References header. Just the
Message-ID for the original post.

My reply to your post
Message-ID:
References: . com

Your Message-ID gets chained in References.

Their reply to my post
Message-ID:
References: . com


The References chain still looks good.

For some reason, your post looked like it was a reply to mine although the
References header shows that is should not. I also noticed that the
original post is missing from the original server which I used for my
first
reply and the second server I used to see your reply (and make my second
reply). Both AIOE and Teranews are missing the original post, so I
suspect
OE is using the Subject header to group the message - but it should not.

Time to review alternate NNTP clients again. Thanks for responding
because
it helped me find that OE doesn't correctly group the threads. It's
peculiar because this is the first one that I've seen where OE doesn't
group
properly by the References header.


--
__________________________________________________
Post replies to the newsgroup. Share with others.
For e-mail: Remove "NIX" and add "#VN" to Subject.
__________________________________________________


maybe this would help you ...

http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/outlook-quotefix/

"Vanguard" wrote in message

....
What should've been:

originalpost
myreplypost
theirreplypost

instead looked like:

originalpost
myreplypost
theirreplypost


Are you sure that "originalpost" was still showing when "theirreplypost"
arrived? eg

....
For some reason, your post looked like it was a reply to mine although the
References header shows that is should not. I also noticed that the
original post is missing from the original server which I used for my first
reply and the second server I used to see your reply (and make my second
reply).


That's what I mean. If "originalpost" was missing then.
OE would be grouping "theirreplypost" under the only other
item from the same thread. In the process of grouping the
grouped message would appear indented under the first one
the same as if it was a reply to the first one.


Both AIOE and Teranews are missing the original post, so I suspect
OE is using the Subject header to group the message - but it should not.


Sometimes it's helpful and sometimes it's not.
You do have to be aware of this quirk to avoid misinterpreting
that there is a threading relationship when none exists.

The oddest groupings occur in involved discussions with many subthreads
when you have View Hide Read Messages in effect. Then the first
message may in fact appear *after* the next message once View Show All...
is turned on. Etc.


Robert Aldwinckle
---

"Haggis" wrote in message
...
snip - my query on why OE didn't propery thread posts based on the
References header

maybe this would help you ...

http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/outlook-quotefix/

OE-Quotefix hasn't been updated in nearly 3 years. It is an abandoned
product. As such, it is a defunct product and has not kept up with patches
and updates. The result is that OE-QuoteFix remains unusable (it has no
effect) when installed in my current setup. I configure OE to *always* read
in plain-text mode since I only use it for newsgroups. Because of that,
OE-QuoteFix won't work anymore. Since it has not been updated to accomodate
for control changes to OE due to Windows XP Service Pack 2 and it won't be
updated further, it is an unusable product and will remain an unusable
product for me. See http://www.insideoe.com/resources/tools.htm#oequotefix.
Read the last sentence inside the boxed area regarding Windows XP SP-2 users
and why OE-QuoteFix stopped working.

While OE-Quotefix changes some behaviors of OE, I have never seen it affect
changes to sort order or grouping based on the References header. That's
not something OE-Quotefix bothers to handle. The primary reason why I used
OE-QuoteFix was to force bottom-posting. However, Windows XP SP-2 updates
OE so that a registry change can now make OE do bottom posting.

--
__________________________________________________
Post replies to the newsgroup. Share with others.
For e-mail: Remove "NIX" and add "#VN" to Subject.
__________________________________________________

"Robert Aldwinckle" wrote in message
...
"Vanguard" wrote in message

...
What should've been:

originalpost
myreplypost
theirreplypost

instead looked like:

originalpost
myreplypost
theirreplypost


Are you sure that "originalpost" was still showing when "theirreplypost"
arrived? eg

I don't know what posts were available on the other respondent's NNTP server
at the time that they issued their reply post. Or do you mean when their
post "arrived" in my instance of OE? When I was reading the thread, the
original post was missing. It is possible that it was over 7 days old and I
ran my rule that deletes (from OE) posts that are over a week old. I'm not
interesting in week-old, or longer, discussions (and will use Google Groups
to find old posts).

However, why would a missing original post cause OE to screw up the
hierarchy for the posts? It should still organize them based on the
References header. The second respondent's reply does NOT list my
Message-ID for my reply in their reply, so OE should not have shown their
post as a reply to me.

For some reason, your post looked like it was a reply to mine although
the
References header shows that is should not. I also noticed that the
original post is missing from the original server which I used for my
first
reply and the second server I used to see your reply (and make my second
reply).


That's what I mean. If "originalpost" was missing then.
OE would be grouping "theirreplypost" under the only other
item from the same thread. In the process of grouping the
grouped message would appear indented under the first one
the same as if it was a reply to the first one.

Aha, I get what you mean. Since the original post was missing from OE, it
could not put the second respondent's post (to the original post) at the
same level as my post because there was no parent node or anchor against
which to show indentation. Hmm, I really don't want to bother keeping my
..dbx files huge with old posts that I won't be bothering to look at anymore
but apparently the original post was older than the number of days in my
delete rule (which would only have effect if I had run it manually).

I'll have to rethink how I age (expire) old posts so that the threading
continues to appear correct. Without the parent node, the child nodes don't
indent properly.

--
__________________________________________________
Post replies to the newsgroup. Share with others.
For e-mail: Remove "NIX" and add "#VN" to Subject.
__________________________________________________

"Vanguard" , haber iletisinde sunlari
...
"Haggis" wrote in message
...
snip - my query on why OE didn't propery thread posts based on the
References header

maybe this would help you ...

http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/outlook-quotefix/

OE-Quotefix hasn't been updated in nearly 3 years. It is an abandoned
product. As such, it is a defunct product and has not kept up with
patches and updates. The result is that OE-QuoteFix remains unusable (it
has no effect) when installed in my current setup. I configure OE to
*always* read in plain-text mode since I only use it for newsgroups.
Because of that, OE-QuoteFix won't work anymore. Since it has not been
updated to accomodate for control changes to OE due to Windows XP Service
Pack 2 and it won't be updated further, it is an unusable product and will
remain an unusable product for me. See
http://www.insideoe.com/resources/tools.htm#oequotefix. Read the last
sentence inside the boxed area regarding Windows XP SP-2 users and why
OE-QuoteFix stopped working.

While OE-Quotefix changes some behaviors of OE, I have never seen it
affect changes to sort order or grouping based on the References header.
That's not something OE-Quotefix bothers to handle. The primary reason
why I used OE-QuoteFix was to force bottom-posting. However, Windows XP
SP-2 updates OE so that a registry change can now make OE do bottom
posting.

--
__________________________________________________
Post replies to the newsgroup. Share with others.
For e-mail: Remove "NIX" and add "#VN" to Subject.
__________________________________________________