Re: Broken threading [was: Unbelievable.]

["J.B. Moreno" <planb@newsreaders.com>]

In article <m37kjo7i2i.fsf@jeeves.decathlon>, 
 Tom Hardy <rhardy@mailandnews.com> wrote:

> "J.B. Moreno" <planb@newsreaders.com> writes:
> 
> >  Thomas Yan <tyan@twcny.rr.com> wrote:
> > 
-snip what to do with References-
> > > Something like: Keep the first (oldest) reference and the last
> > > (newest) 3 references.
> > 
> > That is the minimum GNKSA requirement
-snip-
> > Both the GNKSA and USEFOR recommend that trimming be done by removing
> > the 2nd to oldest ID until you've reached whatever limit you are using.
> 
> Here it differed.  Gnus removed the 6th reference, not the 2nd.

Compliant with a previous draft from USEFOR -- it was thought by some
that it would help with threading (it doesn't).

> I had thought to remove more in the hope of avoiding the truncation
> problem with older newsreaders.  Bad idea?

Not necessarily -- if you comply with the minimum GNKSA requirement,
then threading will work in the vast majority of cases, as will a good
percentage of the other things done to/with the References header.

Of course, the more you leave in the more cases that it will work with,
and in *this* particular case I don't think older software was the
problem -- I think that Dorothy tried to trim it by hand and messed up.

Also note that there is no sure fire way of avoiding the truncation --
a previous version of Mac OE had a problem with long id's (for instance
those from pine) and corrupted the immediate precursor.

My recommendation is to stick to not causing any problems yourself and
removing any known problems, and leave it at that (letting Gnus handle
the rest).

-- 
J.B. Moreno