[sdiy] List etiquette

[Ben Stuyts]

I fully agree with Dave. I think we’re actually talking about two different situations:

If a discussion gradually drifts onto a related subject, changing the Subject while continuing the thread is appropriate, e.g. “Bla (was: blorf)”. That preserves the threading while making it clear that the topic has changed. (Which was happening here, and was why I changed the subject but kept the thread to keep the context. This is debatable.)

However, if you want to start a completely new and unrelated topic, please compose a new message to the list rather than replying to an existing message and changing the Subject. A reply retains the In-Reply-To/References headers, so many mail clients will correctly regard it as part of the old thread regardless of the changed Subject.

In short:

- Related topic / thread drift: reply and change the Subject.
- Completely new topic: compose a new message to the list.

That keeps both the Subject lines and the actual message threading useful.

Ben

> On 10 Sep 2026, at 19:06, David Manley <dlmanley at sonic.net> wrote:
> 
> <delurking>
> 
> Changing only the subject is appropriate where the new thread is in some way related to the old one, but if it is a completely new thread, then doing this maintains the 'in reply to' string which means the new topic will be organized under the old thread by many thread capable readers (Thunderbird being one).
> 
> I find creating new threads under an old one by changing the subject and deleting the old content to be annoying for these reasons.  I realize people do it to keep the address list, but for a new thread on a mailing list only one address is required!  How hard is it?
> 
> -Dave
> 
> On 9/10/26 3:40 AM, Ben Stuyts via Synth-diy wrote:
>> Allow me to point out that you yourself sometimes drift from the topic of a thread. It happens, let it rest.
>> 
>> It is however good old fashioned mailing list etiquette to alter the subject when drifting off-topic. Subject: bla (was: blorf). This still maintains proper message threading but allows readers to skip messages in which they’re not interested.
>> 
>> Ben
>>