Sandman
In article <8bqul99fqimo4gvttjf52bvnc0f6hj8499@4ax.com>, Eric Stevens wrote:

Eric Stevens
Is 'breaking the thread' a new concept to you?

Sandman
Yep! I don't know how one "breaks" a thread.

No elaboration in this? How does one break a thread? It's an interesting claim from you, Eric. Because in one instance, changing the subject meant I "created a new thread" and in another instance where I did the exact same thing, I "broke the thread". What's the difference, according to you?

Eric Stevens
Apart from your devious detail twiddling, you maintained the subject in general but somehow changed it in detail.

Sandman
"Somehow"? I added a question mark, otherwise the subject was identical. No new meaning, nothing but one single character. Which according to you "breaks" the thread. I am wonder why.

Again - in two occassions have I changed the subject line, but kept the References header alone. In one instance you told me I had created a new thread, and in the other instance you claim I have "broken the thread". Why are they different? According to what RFC did I "break the thread"?

Eric Stevens
THreads are usually broken by people who post an article under the same subject heading as another but post it as a new article.

Sandman
But wait - hold on here. You've told me that a "new article" (i.e. new thread, right?) is a post where there is a NEW subject.

So posting an article under the SAME subject heading would - according to you - be to post in the SAME thread, would it not?

You're suggesting here that one can KEEP the subject, yet still post it as a NEW thread. How is that possible if threads are related only by their subject?

Please explain.

Eric Stevens
Do you need help parsing "it recognised that the subject had changed and set it up as a new thread"? Do you need help coming to the conclusion that that is a result of my preferred way I configured Agent (Have you looked at the URL yet? You haven't said).

Sandman
I don't care about your POS news client. USENET definitions and terminology isn't centered around Forte Agent, Eric. I am asking YOU about YOUR definition, not how Agent handles it. I couldn't care less about Agent.

Eric Stevens
I am amused that you say you have asked me for my definition. I have several times asked you to point me to an official definition which supports your belief that a thread is defined entirely by the list of references. You haven't even pretended to answer that question as yet. I don't believe you can.

Sandman
I have pointed to the FACT that it is the *standard* way to do it, calling Agent non-standard. RFC's doesn't concern themselves in how clients display articles, they DO concern themselves in how posting sequences are kept in the usenet format, which is NOT by using the Subject header.

I have also PROVEN that Agent is non-standard in the way you claim it breaks up threads, since no other client does that. Well, among the clients that make up the vast vast majority of users out there.

Oh, and please answer my related post as well - where I responded to a post of yours, removed your text and the References header and KEPT the subject line as-is. According to you, that should NOT be a new thread, since it retains the exact same subject line - which according to you is the only metric to determine whether a new thread has been created or not. So the question is - if it's part of an old thread, which post is it in response to?

Eric Stevens
I might give you an answer to that if you can identify the article.

Sandman
Here: <slrnllrqps.6ls.mr@irc.sandman.net>

Is that a new thread or part of an old thread? Remember, according to you, a new thread is only created when one changes the subject, right? But there you have a post that has the SAME subject, but no References header. So this is me testing your definitions, hoping to make you see the thin ice upon which it is based.

Eric Stevens
As I have described above, it's a new thread. You posted your article as a new article without a list of references.

Sandman
So... References is what determines whether or not it belongs to a thread or not - not the subject?

You're really giving me mixed signals here, Eric. I think you're, as usual, just arguing for the sake of argument without thinking this through.

The post I linked to above has the EXACT samt subject as the post I replied to in my news client. And according to you, threads are determined by the subject header, yet here you're saying that while the subject is *exactly the same*, it lacks the *References* header in order to be part of an ongoing thread - I.e. what I have been saying ALL ALONG.

As you can see, the subject line has nothing to do with what is considered a thread by the vast vast majority of news clients and news *readers* (i.e. people).