Sandman
In article <4uh1m9tk4psupagiejrn1ll9n8a0g2sb9r@4ax.com>, Eric Stevens wrote:

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Eric Stevens
Then there is Agent which you ignored: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/31088803/Agent%20Thread.jpg

Sandman
I didn't ignore it. I am showing how the standard way to display threads is done, and how Agent is non-standard.

Eric Stevens
You are? Where can I watch?

Sandman
There are none so blind as those who will not see.

All support is quoted above.

You keep saying that, without support. Most readers have standard news clients that does NOT (I repeat - NOT) separate a post when the subject is changed, and honor the sequence of articles as stated in the headers. Your claim is based on "the reader" being only users of one of the worst news clients known to man - Agent.

Eric Stevens
My claim is based on readers being people who want to follow particular subjects and not follow others.

Sandman
But the question isn't about whether or not people want to "follow particular subjects", but about what constitutes a thread.

Anyway, you've been clamoring for more references, and I've instead tried to make you explain your own claims and thought that when you tried to do it, you would have understood by yourself how they're not working.

Take a look at section 2.2.5 of RFC 1036. I'll quote it here:

Some comments here. In line three, the RFC mentiones "new subject", which is not the same as "New content in the Subject header", but is used to signify a new thread (new subject, new discussion).

So, a new discussion, or new subject, must NOT have a References header. If it does, it is not a new subject. Again, this has nothing to do with the Subject header, but the concept of a "subject" which we here refer to as "thread".

Also note this part:

"The purpose of the "References" header is to allow messages to be grouped into conversations by the user interface program."

And as such, if Agent does NOT group messages together using the References header (as you claim it does), it is in violation of this RFC.

I know you'll argue about the word "allow" here, but this is merely notig that the usenet client can list all posts as a flat list, sorted on date, author, whatever, or it can use the References header to group it into conversations.

Agent certainly does have a function to group posts together into conversations, but does so - by default - by in some cases ignoring the References header, and is thus in violation of this RFC.

The section also talks about what the "follow-up" command in a news client should do; It should generate a copy of the subject, prepending "Re: " to it if it isn't already present, and it should also either create the References header with the post's Message-ID in it, or append the post's Message-ID to the already existing header field.

It also notes that news clients need not utilize the References header, but that is for those that display it as a flat list (like Tapatalk for iPad), but those clients should still use this header accordingly, for those that DO (i.e. those that groups conversations together via the References header).

Stop trolling now, Eric.