Re: Replying to a Thread

[Bob Proulx]

Hello Greg,

Greg Smith wrote:
> I'm fairly new to these mailing lists.  I've submitted a thread via
> E-mailing directly to the list.  There have been replies to the
> thread and I would like to reply myself, but I do not know how.
> When I click the 'reply' button on the webpage for a thread, it
> opens my mail application with a blank E-mail sent directly to the
> person who wrote the reply I'm looking at.

The GNU mail archives are really intended only as an archive.  It
isn't a full mail interface.

> Instead, I'd like to reply back to the thread with history so that I
> can reply to specific parts.  How do I do that?

The mailing lists are generally intended to be particated in by
subscribing to them and reading the email in your normal email reader.
Then just following up to messages received there.

If you don't want to subscribe then you might want a better web email
browser.  For that you might find Gmane to be a more complete
interaction.  Not all mailing lists are archived at Gmane but most
are.

  http://gmane.org/

Type in the name of the mailing list there.  After searching there and
finding the desired mailing list select the frames and threads
interface to view it.

  On the web, [using frames and threads].

Gmane is a full featured web email interface to a large selection of
mailing lists.  Many people use it to read mailing lists without being
subscribed to them.

Out of curiousity what mailing list are you participating in?

> In my main mail client, I only see daily digests; I don't get
> individual messages.  If that matters:

I personally hate the digests.  They were designed to reduce the
number and duration of phone calls during the UUCP phone modem
networking days.  Instead of having dozens of phone calls one for each
message and each phone dialing needing to sync up with the remote end
a daily digest would produce on phone call daily.  This reduced long
distance phone charges.

To use a digest one needs to "burst" the digest apart before reading
and replying to one of the individual messages.  Mail readers designed
to work with digests have a digest burst action available.

Since these days almost no one knows how or had the capability to
handle digests properly they tend to cause people trouble.  And that
gets reflected in people following up to the mailing list using the
digest subject line instead of the individual message subject line.
Additonally Mailman has a variety of bugs associated with digests.
And so I really hate digests these days.  I wish Mailman did not make
that option available.

> 1)      Do I need to change my options to get individual messages
>         instead of digests?

Yes!  These days there is no reason for a daily digest anymore.

> 2)      How can I reply to threads for which I did not get
>         individual messages?  (From the web interface?  With a
>         specially crafted E-mail?)

Normally one "bursts" the digest apart into individual messages and
then reads and replies to the individual messages normally.  If your
mailer does not do this then you should subscribe to the normal feed
and not the digest feed.

Bob