[R] Replying to replies in the forum

Jeff Newmiller jdnewmil at dcn.davis.ca.us
Wed Apr 5 22:23:38 CEST 2017


There is no conclusively client-free solution, which is why it is not in the Posting Guide. 

However, as a general rule, start with a fresh email to start a thread, and reply-to-all to the message you want to reply to.  The threading is managed by hidden message ids, not subjects. 
-- 
Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.

On April 5, 2017 11:26:27 AM PDT, "Tunga Kantarcı" <tungakantarci at gmail.com> wrote:
>My question is specifically about what I should use in the subject
>line when replying, because I do not trust mail clients, or to myself
>as I use different clients sometimes. Hence, I wanted to learn a
>client free solution to correctly send replies. Now, the posting guide
>is not explicit about this. Hence my question. So what should I type
>in the subject line if I want to reply to a specific reply, and not to
>another reply, so that my reply is nested in the reply I want to
>reply. That I cannot figure out from the posting guide.
>
>On Wed, Apr 5, 2017 at 7:46 PM, Marc Schwartz <marc_schwartz at me.com>
>wrote:
>>
>>> On Apr 5, 2017, at 11:41 AM, Tunga Kantarcı
><tungakantarci at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> OK I cannot figure this out clearly in the guidelines of posting.
>When
>>> I reply to a message I should out "Re:" in front of the subject line
>>> of the original post. So if the subject line of the original post it
>>> is "this is a post", then I should use "Re: this is a post" in the
>>> subject line, for my reply to appear under the original post, and
>not
>>> in the forum as a new message.
>>>
>>> But then I cannot figure out what subject line I should use to reply
>>> to a given reply. That is, suppose the original subject line is
>"this
>>> is a post" and there are replies under the post, and that I want to
>>> reply to one of the replies. How I specify in the subject line so
>that
>>> my reply appears under the reply of a certain person? Or do I have
>to
>>> use the reply features of gmail?
>>>
>>> Meanwhile, why the guidelines is implicit about this?
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> There is an R Posting Guide here:
>>
>>   https://www.r-project.org/posting-guide.html
>>
>> which is a good place to start.
>>
>> Generally, if you want to reply to a post and keep the thread intact,
>always use "reply-all" and that will keep thread participants copied,
>the post sent to all list subscribers, and the posts in the public
>archives for future use.
>>
>> Most e-mail clients (stand alone or web based) will add the "re:"
>prefix automatically, if not already present.
>>
>> Threads are not kept intact in the list archives based upon the
>subject line alone, even though some e-mail clients may do so. This is
>why there can be a change in the subject line when using reply-all and
>the reply post will be kept with the original thread.
>>
>> If, on the other hand, you create a new e-mail and just use "re: the
>original subject line" in the subject, that will start a new thread in
>the archive.
>>
>> Don't use "reply" only to a post, unless specifically asked, as that
>will only copy one person, not the list nor the archives, and the
>communication will only be between you and that person, which is
>frowned upon.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Marc
>>
>
>______________________________________________
>R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
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>PLEASE do read the posting guide
>http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.



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