Conversation thread mavericks

[Mr David]

A personal pet email peeve is triggered when I receive replies to messages in an existing email conversation thread with a changed subject line. This causes the subject-changed message to escape from the existing conversation thread and begin a new one.

Yesterday I fired up my Thunderbird profile. I have the Thunderbird Conversations add-on installed. I saw that maverick messages with changed subject lines were slotted into the conversation threads from which they stemmed.

Whatever TBC reads in message headers in order to gather messages into threaded conversations differs to what is used in the back end of FM's web and phone apps.

Is there some way to make the FM interface behave in a similar fashion? At least in the web interface?

[n5bb]

From Fastmail Help:

Splitting conversations (into multiple threads)

Conversations get split apart and form new conversation threads when:

1. The subject changes
This usually means a new topic is being discussed, so a new conversation thread is formed.
2. A conversation gets too large.
When there are are more than 100 messages in a conversation, a new conversation thread is made.

I have friends who tend to start a new topic to the same group by just editing the subject of an email thread. They might delete the previous message body. So if Fastmail only used the References header (or some other header) that new topic would be inserted into the original thread inappropriately.

The mere use of Re: inserted at the start of the subject doesn’t cause thread splitting. I’m happy with the current Fastmail method of splitting the thread when someone changes the subject. I would be aggravated with reading such a thread in Thunderbird with it set up as you describe.

You can delete a specific message in a thread (as described in the Fastmail help link above. Then you can go into your Trash and Edit as new that message and change the subject. But the From now becomes you, so that doesn’t really help much if you send that modified message back to yourself.

I suggest that the solution if for people in a conversation to not change the subject line unless everyone agrees that it’s a new thread.

Bill

[Mr David]

Thank you for providing the link to Conversations in FM's help pages. As ever there is always the manual.

It's acceptable to me when a message subject is changed to begin a conversation on a new topic. It is annoying when the subject line is changed for no reason and the message continues on the same topic as the parent thread.

Originally Posted by n5bb

I suggest that the solution if for people in a conversation to not change the subject line unless everyone agrees that it’s a new thread.

Agreed. Unfortunately some of my correspondents are slow to catch on to this level of email etiquette.

I've recently returned from a 4w stay with an aunt in northern Queensland. Much nicer there than wintry Melbourne right now. I spent time trying to improve the way she works with email (via TB, which is a wonderfully maleable client, but her POP3 account sucks, will get her to shift to FM eventually). Some of her correspondents are bigger nuisances than mine. A handful conduct conversations across multiple digital channels. Jump from email to SMS to messaging app with no rhyme or reason depending on what device is at hand or where their mood guides them. It sends my aunt around the twist.