I am not sure I agree with the RE: part....I find that a thread goes on for
awhile and then it is broken by a RE: reply like Loren said.  BTW-I sue
Gmail, but not a Sys Admin, so I would like to hear more(not that it will
change anything)
Michael in San Antonio
91GL AT 'Gringo'
73 Beetle

On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 11:57 AM, Rowan Tipton <uther@dragonhome.org> wrote:

> Hi Loren,
>
> Speaking as the email administrator at the university of tennessee -
> where I've been the SysAdm for email for over 20 years - I don't know
> what you mean by "more advanced email programs like Gmail and such".
> I mentioned what I do for a living just so you'll know that I do know
> a bit about email.  Gmail is a web based mail client... not
> particularly advanced compared to any other modern web based email
> clients and fairly primitive compared to many computer based email
> clients.  Anyway, like all email clients that I've ever seen, it does
> put "Re:" before a replied to subject.  There are a number of email
> clients that let you change that behavior and a number that do not.
> At one point I remember that there was discussion about putting in
> into an RFC as a best practice - but I don't that ever happened.
>
> If your email client breaks threads with "Re:" in the subject line
> than your email client is broken.  Gmail (by default) puts all of the
> mail in one thread together so that if you look in your inbox (for
> example) you might see something like: "Alicia, me (5)" which means
> that there are five messages in that thread.  All except the original
> will have "Re:" before the subject.
>
>
>
>
> On Feb 27, 2010, at 11:50 AM, Loren Busch wrote:
>
> A note for all on responding to list messages.  If your email
>> program (or if
>> you, by typing it in) is adding an "RE:" at the front of the Subject
>> line in
>> your message then your are breaking up the thread.  That "Re:" in the
>> Subject creates a whole new thread.  For many of us that use more
>> advanced
>> email programs like Gmail and such then the continuity of the
>> messages is
>> lost.  And in many cases, if no part of the original message is
>> included,
>> the messages make no sense.  But the biggest impact is for future
>> searches
>> of the archived messages.  If the Subject line is changed then the
>> thread is
>> broken and the responses, like to a technical question, are lost or
>> appear
>> in a different thread. So let me suggest that you NOT include the
>> "Re:" in
>> the Subject.  Either don't enter it or turn that feature off in your
>> email
>> program.
>>
>
> I remain, as always
> YrLyl&ObdntSrvnt,
>
> r
>