Re: references on multiple message followup

[Karl Kleinpaste <karl@charcoal.com>]

Kevin Ryde <user42@zip.com.au> writes:
> If I process mark a couple of articles to followup, so as to quote all
> the text, the references constructed seems to be based only on the
> first article.

> I wonder if the references from all the articles could be included.
> Or if that's a bit hard then maybe use the last article instead of the
> first.

The problem is that References is, in principle, a strict linear
parentage list from head to tail of a thread.  Trying to use
References with multiple, immediately-referring message-ids creates
something of a lattice, abandoning the linear interpretation.

Reputedly, the USEFOR draft includes a much-modified concept of
In-Reply-To which can contain the message-ids of all messages to which
the new message refers.  (I confess to not having personally seen
USEFOR's draft in an indecently long time.)  But I don't believe
there's any support for that yet.

In any event, complicating matters is the problem of how one would
thread a message in a summary display, based on linear References
interpretation, that had lattice-like References content.