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Dear tb-planning fellows,<br>
<br>
Some discussion has been taking place recently on <a
href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=583587">bug
583587</a> regarding the threading of forwarded messages.<br>
<br>
The current behavior is that forwarded messages start up a new
thread, that is to say, they do not include any References: headers
to the original message. While this behavior has been the de facto
standard for years, I believe it might be worthwhile to change its
semantics slightly. It is often desirable to thread the forwarded
message and the original message together.<br>
<br>
Possible justifications include:<br>
- the ability, with a threaded message list, and a unified inbox
that also searches in the "sent" folders, to regroup the whole
thread together<br>
- better indexing (gloda would then be able to relate these messages
together)<br>
- and, as you probably guessed already, parity with gmail,
especially when it comes to the conversation view.<br>
<br>
I believe this feature will turn out to be even more worthwhile as
we move towards new visualizations, e.g. the upcoming Thunderbird
Air or, again, any form of conversation view. Seeing the forwarded
messages and the subsequent messages feels, imho, quite natural.<br>
<br>
Privacy concerns prevent us from including the whole chain of
references. Rather, what is suggested is only inserting the
Message-Id of the original message into the forwarded message's
References: header.<br>
<br>
One other suggestion from Andrew Sutherland is adding an extra
X-Forwarded-Message-Id header, so that Gloda can, in the future,
understand better the relationship between the different batches of
messages, and possibly improve its metadata or its internal
representation of such conversations.<br>
<br>
So far, I have been unsuccessful at finding any RFC on this topic,
but I believe there might be some.<br>
<br>
I'd like very much to hear about your thoughts, comments, and
insights on this proposal.<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
<br>
jonathan (:protz)<br>
<br>
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